Functional Anatomy and Evolutionary Morphology

The fossil record provides important evidence for documenting the past diversity and evolutionary relationships of extinct primates, but it also offers clues to understanding their paleobiology.  This includes inferences about their dietary and locomotor behavior, cognitive and sensory capabilities, social organization, body size, and life-history. It is possible to glean a great deal about the lifeways and natural history of extinct primates from the tattered fragments of biology that are revealed to us from the fossil record. Terry Harrison’s recent research in this area has focused on the biogeography of Asian primates during the Pleistocene, the paleobiology of fossil bushbabies and Old World monkeys from the Pliocene of East Africa, and the functional morphology of the hand and forelimb in relation to locomotor behavior.

Selected recent publications

Harrison, T. & Rein, T.R. 2016. The hands of fossil non-hominoid anthropoids, in T. Kivell, P. Lemelin,  B. Richmond, & D. Schmitt. (Eds.). The Evolution of the Primate Hand: Perspectives from Anatomical, Developmental, Functional and Paleontological Evidence, pp. 455-483. Springer, New York.

Rein, T.R., Harvati, K., & Harrison, T. Inferring the use of forelimb suspensory locomotion by extinct primate species via shape exploration of the ulna. Journal of Human Evolution 78: 70-79.

Rein, T.R., Harrison, T., & Zollikofer, C.P.E. 2011. Skeletal correlates of quadrupedalism and climbing in the anthropoid forelimb: Implications for inferring locomotion in Miocene catarrhines. Journal of Human Evolution 61: 564-574.

Harrison, T. 2011. Cercopithecids (Cercopithecidae, Primates), in T. Harrison (Ed.) Paleontology and Geology of Laetoli: Human Evolution in Context.  Volume 2:  Fossil Hominins and the Associated Fauna, pp. 83-139. Dordrecht: Springer.

Harrison, T. 2011. Galagidae (Lorisoidea, Primates), in T. Harrison (Ed.) Paleontology and Geology of Laetoli: Human Evolution in Context.  Volume 2:  Fossil Hominins and the Associated Fauna, pp. 75-81. Dordrecht: Springer.

Harrison, T. 2010.  Later Tertiary Lorisiformes, in L. Werdelin & W.J. Sanders, (Eds.) Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, pp. 333-349.  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Harrison, T., Krigbaum, J.S., & Manser, J. 2006. Primate biogeography and ecology on the Sunda Shelf islands: A paleontological and zooarchaeological perspective, in J.G. Fleagle & S. Lehman (Eds.) Primate Biogeography, pp. 323-364.  New York: Springer.