Positional behavior and canopy use of black snub-nosed monkeys Rhinopithecus strykeri in the Gaoligong Mountains, Yunnan, China

Studies on positional behavior and canopy use are essential for understanding how arboreal animals adapt their morphological characteristics and behaviors to the challenges of their environment. This study explores canopy and substrate use along with positional behavior in adult black snub-nosed monkeys Rhinopithecus strykeri, an endemic, critically endangered primate species in Gaoligong Mountains, southwest China. Using continuous focal animal sampling, we collected data over a 52-month period and found that R. strykeri is highly arboreal primarily using the high layers of the forest canopy (15–30 m), along with the terminal zone of tree crowns (52.9%), medium substrates (41.5%), and oblique substrates (56.8%). We also found sex differences in canopy and substrate use. Females use the terminal zones (56.7% versus 40.4%), small/medium (77.7% versus 60.1%), and oblique (59.9% versus 46.5%) substrates significantly more than males. On the other hand, males spend more time on large/very large (39.9% versus 22.3%) and horizontal (49.7% versus 35.2%) substrates. Whereas both sexes mainly sit (84.7%), and stand quadrupedally (9.1%), males stand quadrupedally (11.5% versus 8.3%), and bipedally (2.9% versus 0.8%) more often than females. Clamber, quadrupedalism, and leap/drop are the main locomotor modes for both sexes. Rhinopithecus strykeri populations never enter canopies of degenerated secondary forest and mainly use terminal branches in the middle and upper layers of canopies in intact mid-montane moist evergreen broadleaf forest and hemlock coniferous broadleaf mixed forests across their habitat.

Ardipithecus hand provides evidence that humans and chimpanzees evolved from an ancestor with suspensory adaptations

The morphology and positional behavior of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees are critical for understanding the evolution of bipedalism. Early 20th century anatomical research supported the view that humans evolved from a suspensory ancestor bearing some resemblance to apes. However, the hand of the 4.4-million-year-old hominin Ardipithecus ramidus purportedly provides evidence that the hominin hand was derived from a more generalized form. Here, we use morphometric and phylogenetic comparative methods to show that Ardipithecus retains suspensory adapted hand morphologies shared with chimpanzees and bonobos. We identify an evolutionary shift in hand morphology between Ardipithecus and Australopithecus that renews questions about the coevolution of hominin manipulative capabilities and obligate bipedalism initially proposed by Darwin. Overall, our results suggest that early hominins evolved from an ancestor with a varied positional repertoire including suspension and vertical climbing, directly affecting the viable range of hypotheses for the origin of our lineage.

Limb proportions and positional behavior

Major changes in body shape occurred during human evolution, but questions remain about body shape in australopiths. The present study investigates the specifics of the presumed relationships between limb indices and positional behavior underlying prior work that compared proportions among extant hominids in order to make inferences about extinct hominins. We find that although both intermembral index or ratio of diaphyseal and articular proportions distinguish humans from great apes, neigher correlates well with variation in the degree of arboreality in the locomotor repertoire of extant hominids. Brachial index and a ratio of diaphyseal and articular dimensions from the fore- and hindlimb, however, do correlate with degree of arboreality, and scale slightly positively allometrically within species in all extant taxa. These two observations are taken into consideration in a more nuanced interpretation of a reanalysis of articular-diaphyseal limb proportions in an expanded sample of the Sterkfontein postcrania. This study confirms previous findings that Australopithecus africanus had larger forelimb dimensions in relation to hindlimb dimensions than modern humans and A. afarensis, similar to the patterns seen in extant apes, particularly western gorillas. However, data presented here suggest that interpreting a particular taxon as “human-like” or “ape-like” may be overly simplistic. Instead, while both A. africanus and A. afarensis were almost certainly committed bipeds that incorporated some arboreality into their locomotor repertoire, A. africanus apparently used a set of locomotor behaviors that was more distinct from that of A. afarensis than Pan troglodytes and Gorilla gorilla are from each other.