How to translate text using browser tools
6 January 2022 A New Humerus of Homunculus patagonicus, a Stem Platyrrhine from the Santa Cruz Formation (Late Early Miocene), Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
John G. Fleagle, Justin T. Gladman, Richard F. Kay
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

We describe a well-preserved humerus of Homunculus patagonicus, a stem platyrrhine from the late early Miocene of the Santa Cruz Formation, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. The distal part of a humerus was collected by Carlos Ameghino and figured in the 19th Century, but is now lost. Other described postcranial elements, also collected by him include a femur and a partial radius. Comparative observations are made with living and extinct platyrrhines, Oligocene African anthropoids, and extant strepsirrhines. Homunculus patagonicus was a robustly built arboreal quadruped that weighed between 2.2 and 2.6 kg. There is no evidence that the elbow could be fully extended as in living suspensory platyrrhines like Ateles. The medial orientation of the epicondyle suggests that the finger and wrist flexors were not aligned with the long axis of the limb, a distinction from more cursorial monkeys (extant cercopithecoids and the Cuban Pleistocene fossil platyrrhine Paralouatta have retroflexed medial epicondyles). Overall, the morphology is typically platyrrhine although the bone is quite robust. The robustness of the humerus is most comparable to that of early anthropoids from Africa rather than any extant platyrrhine.

John G. Fleagle, Justin T. Gladman, and Richard F. Kay "A New Humerus of Homunculus patagonicus, a Stem Platyrrhine from the Santa Cruz Formation (Late Early Miocene), Santa Cruz Province, Argentina," Ameghiniana 59(1), 78-96, (6 January 2022). https://doi.org/10.5710/AMGH.29.09.2021.3447
Received: 30 April 2021; Accepted: 29 September 2021; Published: 6 January 2022
KEYWORDS
Evolución de los primates
Locomoción
locomotion
Platirrinos
Platyrrhini
Postcráneo
Postcrania
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top