| Abstrakt: |
Three species of gibbons living now both on the Malay Peninsula and on the island of Sumatra are compared as regards the morphology of the molar teeth. Since the continental and the island populations of these species are known to have been separated since early or middle Pleistocene times, the comparison here made provides information on the amount of morphological evolution that has occurred in the dentition of these primates since that time. It is found that, of the 3 species studied,Symphalangus syndactylus has better retained a number of conservative features on the island than on the continent;Hylobates lar, on the contrary, appears to have evolved further away from the ancestral form on the island than on the continent. These findings warn against an oversimplified view of the effects of isolation on the evolution of higher primates. |
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