Adaptation to climate occupies a central position in biological anthropology. The demonstrable relationship between temperature and morphology in extant primates (including humans) forms the basis of the interpretation of the Pleistocene hominin Homo neanderthalensis as a cold-adapted species. There are contradictory signals, however, in the pattern of primate craniofacial changes associated wi...

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare congenital neurodevelopmental disorder with distinctive facial features, cardiovascular abnormalities, short stature, mental retardation, and behaviour and cognitive characteristics. The aim of this study was to describe the neurocranial morphology and growth in a group of 62 individuals with WS. The neurocranium was analysed on lateral cephalograms and comparis...

Cranial skeletal morphology, ontogeny and variation are examined in five species of Thorim, a genus of diminutive plethodontid salamanders that are among the smallest, extant, tailed tetrapods. The akull of adult 'Thhoriu~ is characterized by: (1) limited development or absence of several ossified clemrnts and dentition; (2) increased interand intraspecifir variability; (3) novel morphological ...

Though the dinosaur Thescelosaurus neglectus was first described in 1913 and is known from the relatively fossiliferous Lance and Hell Creek formations in the Western Interior Basin of North America, the cranial anatomy of this species remains poorly understood. The only cranial material confidently referred to this species are three fragmentary bones preserved with the paratype, hindering atte...

The association between cranial base morphology and Class III malocclusion is poorly understood. This study analyses local shape- and size differences in cranial base configurations of Class I and Class III subjects, employing finite element (FEM) analysis. Seventy-three prepubertal European-American children with Class III malocclusion were compared to their counterparts with a normal, Class I...

This chapter reviews various aspects of cranial kinesis, or the presence of moveable joints within the cranium, with a concentration on lepidosaurs. Previous studies tend to focus on morphological correlates of cranial kinesis, without taking into account experimental evidence supporting or refuting the presence of the various forms of cranial kinesis in these taxa. By reviewing experimental an...

Direct development in amphibians is an evolutionarily derived life-history mode that involves the loss of the free-living, aquatic larval stage. We examined embryos of the direct-developing anuran Eleutherodactylus coqui (Leptodactylidae) to evaluate how the biphasic pattern of cranial ontogeny of metamorphosing species has been modified in the evolution of direct development in this lineage. W...

Neotropical bats of the genus Carollia are widely studied due to their abundance, distribution and relevance for ecosystems. However, the ecomorphological boundaries of these species are poorly differentiated, and consequently correspondence between their geographic distribution, ecological plasticity and morphological variation remains unclear. In this study, patterns of cranial and mandibular...

Rungwecebus kipunji is a recently discovered, critically endangered primate endemic to southern Tanzania. Although phenetically similar to mangabeys, molecular analyses suggest it is more closely related to Papio or possibly descended from an ancient population of baboon-mangabey hybrids. At present, only a single kipunji specimen, an M1-stage juvenile male, is available for study; thus, the cr...