| Abstract: | The aberrant features of the genus Daubentonia, such as the superficially rodent-like dentition, the globose and foreshortened brain case, and the filiform third manual digit have long been known. But the current assessment of the genus as lemuriform, and within that group as closest to the indriids, depends upon greater weight being placed upon other characteristics such as the cranial arterial pattern, the molariform teeth, and the developmental characteristics of the dentition. Prior multivariate morphometric studies have shown that though the shoulder structure of Daubentonia is uniquely different from that of all other primates, the structure of its pelvis may not be especially different from that of many relatively non-specialized primates. A large series of studies have been summated here in which many different anatomical regions (shoulder, arm, forearm, forelimb as a whole, pelvis, femur, hindlimb as a whole, forelimb and hindlimb combined, and total bodily proportions including limbs, trunk, and head) have been characterized osteometrically in a wide range of primate genera. The resulting data sets have been studied by discriminant function analyses. The differences that have been found are large enough that it can be confidently asserted that in its postcranial skeleton, Daubentonia is more different from the primates as a whole than is any other primate genus. These differences are big enough that their statistical and biological significance is not at all in doubt, notwithstanding the very small numbers of available specimens of this rare genus. They are so great that functional implications exist though they cannot, in our present state of knowledge of the habits of the genus, be ascribed with any certainty. They are so great indeed, paralleling the enormous differences of Daubentonia from other primates in its dentition, skull and cheiridia, that we may prefer to keep open minds about its taxonomic placement. |
