Ape Anatomy and Evolution

Book excerpt: APE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTION presents for the first time a comparative anatomy of all four lineages of apes. Following the tradition of blending art and anatomy Zihlman and Underwood emphasize a whole animal perspective and form-function relationships. They detail methods of data collection, analytical procedures, and quantitative comparative results. Each ape is individually profiled in behavioral ecology, evolutionary and life histories, locomotion and the musculoskeleton. Attentive to sexual variation, they compare the four apes along these same dimensions. Applying lessons from this comparative anatomy and bipedalism, they present new ideas on human origins as one of three lineages emerging from an African ape parental population. Over 150 pages of original full color photos and illustrations that include maps, skeletons, muscles, and graphed data for easy comparisons.