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I Tattersall

Publications and source records attributed to I Tattersall.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Morphology, paleoanthropology, and Neanderthals.

Morphology carries the primary signal of events in the evolutionary history of any group of organisms but has been relatively neglected by paleoanthropologists, those who study the history of the human species. Partly this is the result of historical influences, but it is also due to a rather fundamentalist adherence among paleoanthropologists to the tenets of the Neodarwinian Evolutionary Synthesis. The result has been a general paleoanthropological desire to project the species Homo sapiens back into the past as far and in as linear a manner as possible. However, it is clear that the human fossil record, like that of most other taxa, reveals a consistent pattern of systematic diversity--a diversity totally unreflected in the conventional minimalist interpretation of that record. Thus, the Neanderthals, both morphologically and behaviorally as distinctive a group of hominids as ever existed, are conventionally classified simply as a subspecies of our own species Homo sapiens--a classification that robs these extinct relatives of their evolutionary individuality. Only when we recognize the Neanderthals as a historically distinctive evolutionary entity, demanding understanding in its own terms, will we be able to do them proper justice. And we will only be able to do this by restoring morphology to its proper place of primacy in human evolutionary studies.

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PubMed1996

Significance of some previously unrecognized apomorphies in the nasal region of Homo neanderthalensis.

For many years, the Neanderthals have been recognized as a distinctive extinct hominid group that occupied Europe and western Asia between about 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. It is still debated, however, whether these hominids belong in their own species, Homo neanderthalensis, or represent an extinct variant of Homo sapiens. Our ongoing studies indicate that the Neanderthals differ from modern humans in their skeletal anatomy in more ways than have been recognized up to now. The purpose of this contribution is to describe specializations of the Neanderthal internal nasal region that make them unique not only among hominids but possibly among terrestrial mammals in general as well. These features lend additional weight to the suggestion that Neanderthals are specifically distinct from Homo sapiens.

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PubMed1996

Whose teeth?

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

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PubMed1993

Madagascar's lemurs.

These primates can tell us a great deal about our own evolutionary past. But many species are already extinct, and the habitats of those that remain are shrinking fast.

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PubMed1983

A new genus and species of adapid primate from the middle Eocene of Alsace, and a new genus for 'Adapis' ruetimeyeri Stehlin, 1912.

A new primate genus and species, represented by isolated teeth, is described from the middle Eocene Alsatian site of Bouxwiller. This new form is closely related to Egerkingen 'Adapis' ruetimeyeri, for which a new genus is proposed because of the important distinctions from type Adapis present in its dentition. Nonetheless, both new genera are closely related to Adapis and Leptadapis.

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PubMed1982

Relationships of Microadapis sciureus (Stehlin, 1916), and two new primate genera from the Eocene of Switzerland.

We review the fossil material from the Swiss middle Eocene site of Egerkingen allocated to Adapis sciureus and transferred to the new genus Microadapis. Three species at least are represented in this assemblage. Microadapis sciureus is represented only by the holotype, whose affinities appear to lie with the North American Smilodectes. Most of the original hypodigm is allocable to the new genus Simonsia, which does bear the affinities to Adapis suggested by earlier authors for sciureus. Two specimens are placed in the new genus, Chasselasia, which may be related to the extant galagids.

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PubMed1978

Dietary and dental variations in the genus Lemur, with comments concerning dietary-dental correlations among Malagasy primates.

Field studies of feeding in the lemur subspecies Lemur fulvus rufus and L. f. mayottensis have revealed that feeding patterns within a single species can be markedly different, both regionally and seasonally. Thus L. f. rufus is a dietary specialist (3 plant species accounting for 80-90% of feeding time), and is highly folivorous, especially during the dry season (90% of feeding time spent eating leaves during the dry season, and 53% during the wet season). On the other hand, L. f. mayottensis is more generalized dietarily (the parts of 12 plant species accounting for 90% of feeding time), and is primarily frugivorous (64% of feeding time spent eating fruit, with a monthly maximum during the wet season of 79%. In both these respects, L. f. mayottensis resembles L. catta are more closely thant it does L. f. rufus. When size differences are corrected for, Lemur fulvus rufus has significantly longer second lower molar shearing crests than does L. f. mayottensis. Other folivorous Malagasy strepsirhines also tend to have long shearing crests than frugivorous forms. Some data on cheirogaleines also suggest that the more insectivorous species have better developed molar crests than frugivorous species. Some apparent exceptions to this pattern are noted, especially for Lemur catta, which in certain functional respects dentally more closely resembles L. f. rufus than L. f. mayottensis. The problems of dietary classifications are discussed.

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PubMed1976

Cycles of activity, group composition, and diet of Lemur mongoz mongoz Linnaeus 1766 in Madagascar.

A preliminary study of the ecology and behavior of Lemur mongoz mongoz was carried out in the northwest of Madagascar. The animals were observed for approximately 250 h in July till August, 1973, and for 50 h in June, 1974. L.m.mongoz has been reported to be diurnal and to live in groups of 6-8 individuals. However, we found the animals to be nocturnal and that groups contained an adult male, an adult female and their offspring (groups numbering from 2 to 4 individuals). L.m.mongoz is thus the only species of the genus Lemur studied to date that is active exclusively at night and that lives in family groups. L.m.mongoz was also found to have a very specialized diet. During our study, it was observed to feed on only five species of plant and mainly on the nectar-producing parts (flowers and nectaries) of four of these species. It spent most of its feeding time licking nectar from the flowers of the kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra, and is probably a major pollinator of this tree in Madagascar. In Africa and South and Central America, the kapok tree is usually bat-pollinated. A dietary preference for nectar, although common among bats, has not previously been observed in primates.

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