Meeting Abstract

P1.69  Tuesday, Jan. 4  Post-cranial adaptation of primates for agonistic physical conflict CUNNINGHAM, CB*; CARRIER, DR; University of Utah; University of Utah c.cunningham@utah.edu

Male primates generally engage in high amounts of agonistic physical conflict and this behavior represents an important part of many species’ life history. While female primates can and do engage in physical conflict, it is usually not with the same intensity or frequency. This leads to the possibility/prediction that males will be more specialized for physical conflict than females. This prediction has received supporting evidence from many studies of the cranial features (e.g., relative canine tooth size) and body mass across the order. However, little is known about possible post-cranial specializations for physical conflict. We visited museum collections to measure predicted differences in skeletons between male and female primates. We found that there are measurable differences consistent with predictions, even when measures are adjusted for size by dividing the measures by the average of all the skeletal metrics from each individual. For example, gorilla and orangutan males have relatively shorter arms than females and in 5 out of 7 species measured males had longer relative olecranon length. In conclusion, it seems that some aspects of the post-cranial skeleton of male primates are possibly specialized for physical conflict.