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.