ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the non-dental morphological configuration of dryopithecines with special reference to the hypothesis of linear relationships between certain fossil species and living analogues. There is one important fossil dryopithecine wrist complex–the KNM-RU-2036 specimen from Rusinga Island. This fossil assigned to D. africanus, has been thought indicative of palmigrade quadrupedal monkey-like actions. Le Gros Clark and L. S. B. Leakey and John Napier have described probable dryopithecine proximal femora from Moboko and Songhor as being essentially monkey-like. H. M. Mchenry and R. S. Corruccini conducted a functional metrical analysis of primate femora including the fossils, the Eppelsheim femur, comparative samples of three genera of monkeys, six species of living Hominoidea including man, and fossil hominids. The chapter emphasizes postcranial analysis, cranial morphology is important to phylogenetic inference and relates indirectly to locomotor-behavioral conclusions based on the postcranium.
