School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Department of Anatomy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Jean Dumoncel
Laboratoire AMIS, UMR 5288 CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Laboratoire PACEA, UMR 5199 CNRS, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac, France
Salvador Moyà-Solà
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain; Unitat d’Antropologia (Departament de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain
Phylogenetic relationships among extinct hominoids (apes and humans) are controversial due to pervasive homoplasy and the incompleteness of the fossil record. The bony labyrinth might contribute to this debate, as it displays strong phylogenetic signal among other mammals. However, the potential of the vestibular apparatus for phylogenetic reconstruction among fossil apes remains understudied. Here we test and quantify the phylogenetic signal embedded in the vestibular morphology of extant anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) and two extinct apes (Oreopithecus and Australopithecus) as captured by a deformation-based 3D geometric morphometric analysis. We also reconstruct the ancestral morphology of various hominoid clades based on phylogenetically-informed maximum likelihood methods. Besides revealing strong phylogenetic signal in the vestibule and enabling the proposal of potential synapomorphies for various hominoid clades, our results confirm the relevance of vestibular morphology for addressing the controversial phylogenetic relationships of fossil apes.
