Know Your Primate: Presbytis hosei canicrus

Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorrhini
Family: Cercopithecidae
Subfamily: Colobinae
Genus: Presbytis
Species: Presbytis hosei canicrus
Common Name: Miller’s grizzled langur
Presbytis hosei canicrus is a subspecies of grey leaf monkey. It was feared to be extinct but has recently been observed in Borneo. Picture Source

A Response to Joseph Kuhn’s Dissecting Darwinism

I was alerted to creationist article published in the Proceedings of the Baylor University Medical Center via Why Evolution Is True. The author of the paper is Joseph Kuhn, MD who claims that “…surgeons are uniquely capable of gathering information, making observations, and reaching conclusions about scientific discoveries.” For the most part it is your standard ID mumbo jumbo and has been ably dissected elsewhere. One part, however, caught my eye:

The transitional species from primitive primates to man have been illustrated in textbooks for over 100 years. These drawings form the visual imagery that supports Darwinian evolution for high school students, university students, medical students, and the public. However, honest dissent exists in the accuracy of most of the transitional prehominoids, with many found to be frauds or animal species. Reconstructions based on fragmentary and scattered bones, surface bones, and gross morphologic features are limited. Anomalous findings of stone tools, bones, and hundreds of other artifacts have suggested that Homo sapiens were actually present 2 to 7 million years ago (at the same time as early proposed transitional species)…(reference omitted – afarensis) Certainly, there has been no additional transitional mutant or species change from the first generally accepted Homo sapiens over 200,000 years ago.

Know Your Hominin: Sambungmacan 3

Sambungmacan 3 was discovered in 1977 and spent some time on the antiquities market, eventually ending up in New York, where its importance was realized. It has since been returned to Indonesia. It is attributed to Homo erectus and may be the skull of a female.

Source: Delson et al (2001) The Sambungmacan 3 Homo erectus Calvaria: A Comparative Morphometric and Morphological Analysis

For Further Reading:
Broadfield et al (2001) Endocast of Sambungmacan 3 (Sm 3): A new Homo erectus from Indonesia. The Anatomical Record 262:369-379

Delson et al (2001) The Sambungmacan 3 Homo erectus Calvaria: A Comparative Morphometric and Morphological Analysis. The Anatomical Record 262:380-397

Laitman and Tattersall (2001) Homo erectus newyorkensis: An Indonesian fossil rediscovered in Manhattan sheds light on the middle phase of human evolution. The Anatomical Record 262:341-343

Marquez et al (2001) New Fossil Hominid Calvaria From Indonesia—Sambungmacan 3. The Anatomical Record 262:344–368

Lost Microscope Slides Of Hooker and Darwin Rediscovered

This is cool.

Falcon-Lang’s find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker — a botanist and dear friend of Darwin — and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin’s mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker.
The first slide pulled out of the dusty corner at the British Geological Survey turned out to be one of the specimens collected by Darwin during his famous expedition on the HMS Beagle, which changed the young Cambridge graduate’s career and laid the foundation for his subsequent work on evolution.

More info can be found here. Apparently, there is also a more formal writeup in Geology Today, but I haven’t been able to track that down yet.

Sigh…Unemployed again…

Got the news on December 5th that the functions of my department were being transferred to Texas. Today is our last day…Been putting out resumes and applications since they told us but haven’t snagged even an interview yet…

Christopher Hitchens: In Memoriam

The world has become a little poorer today.

Shark Bites Whale

Phys.Org mentions an interesting article published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. The article concerns a fragment of a whale rib, dating to the Pliocene, that shows evidence of a shark bite. In this case the rib also displays evidence of having survived the attack. From Phys.Org:

Gigantopithecus!

The open access journal Chinese Science Bulletin has an article on the carbon isotope values of Gigantopithecus blacki teeth.

Laetoli Footprints In The News

Live Science has an interesting report on a new look at the Laetoli footprint trails. As mentioned here and here the famous footprint trails are in trouble due to erosion. Plans are to build a museum on the site to preserve them. Live Science takes it from there:

Missed My Seventh Blogiversery

Back on October 4th my seventh blogiversery came and went and I somehow missed it. Kind of hard to believe that I have been doing this for seven years, time has certainly flew by…

The Dispersal of Homo sapiens in Europe

Nature has two papers relating to the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Europe. The first, by Higham et al provides new dates on KC4 (Kent’s Cavern), a maxilla fragment attributed to Homo sapiens. The new dates (44.2 – 41.5 kyr cal BP) make KC4 contemporary with late European Neanderthals. The Higham et al article also rexamines the morphology of KC4 and confirms that it is Homo sapiens.

Know Your Hominin: A. L. 822-1

A. L. 822-1 was discovered in 2000 at Hadar, Ethipia. It is attributed to Australopithecus afarensis and is, at the time of discovery, the only complete skull of a female A. afarensis. The skull dates to approximately 3.1 MYA and is one of three that preserves both a cranium and a mandible (the others being A.L. 444-2 and A.L. 417-1).

Literature

Kimbel and Rak (2010) The cranial base of Australopithecus afarensis: new insights from the female skull. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2010 365, 3365-3376, doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0070

Kimbel (2009) Australopithecus afarensis and the Mosaic Evolution of the Hominin Cranial Base. Note: This is an audio presentation given at a seminar hosted by the Royal Society in 2009.

How to Occupy Wall Street From Home

Interesting idea…
Occupy Wall Street from home. This seems to be interesting as well – except there seems to be some issue with the video… which was working earlier today…Try here

Know Your Hominin: Stw 53

I am starting a new series, similar to “know Your Primate” – which will continue – on hominins. The difference, besides subject matter, will be that instead of discussing species I’ll be posting pictures of individual fossils with some additional commentary as the mood strikes me. First up is Stw 53 from Sterfontein. Stw 53 was discovered in 1976 by Alan Hughes and has been at the heart of debates over South African hominin variability. So much so that last year Curnoe used it as the holotype of a new species. The question of how many species are represented in the South African fossil record is something I am becoming interested in, so I will be taking a more in depth look at the question over the coming months. In the meantime, here is Stw 53:

Mini Book Review: Daniel Lieberman The Evolution of the Human Head

I just bought a copy of Daniel Lieberman’s The Evolution of the Human Head the other day. I’m only on chapter three (hence a mini review), which gives an overview of the embryological development of the head. However, based on what I have read so far I would highly recommend it. The central premise is that hominins vary very little postcranialy – arguable, but somewhat correct – but vary quite a bit cranially. The book sets out to explore why this is the case and so far has been a fascinating read. I’ll do a full review when I have finished the book.