Dental Variation Among Asian Colobines, with Specific Reference to the Macaques on the Same Continent
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Abstract
In order to discern dental morphometric variations among the Asian colobines, residuals of the colobines, derived from allometric baselines formed by the Asian macaques (Macaca), were analyzed with Principal Components Analysis and Euclidean Distances. Results indicated that the widely accepted view that the colobines possess relatively smaller front teeth than the macaques is only the case for the first incisors. The colobines show relatively smaller molars than the macaques. Such profiles may be related to the differences in dietary preferences between the two major groups of the Asian Old World monkeys. The magnitude of such differences is not as great as usullay assumed for the two groups that contain both African and Asian taxa. In other words, the two Asian cercopithecoid groups may have homogenously been shaped by the tectonic modifications and climate alterations in the past five million years. There exist marked differences among the Asian colobines when each of the genera is compared with macaques; the dental profile reflects not only the variation in geographic distribution but also in phylogenetic divergence. Thus, the snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus) and the gray langurs (Semnopithecus) are characterized by relatively larger molars than the other colobines – larger even than those of the macaques. The differences among Asian colobines, depicted by Euclidean Distances, seems to reflect the relationship of the phylogeny and evolution between colobines and cercopithecines.
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