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A new west African chimpanzee subspecies?

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Abstract

We have sequenced a portion of the mitochondrial DNA control region from the hairs of Nigerian chimpanzees living on both sides of the Niger River, which is proposed as a biogeographic boundary. Our data suggest that a previously unrecognized type of chimpanzee may be present in Nigeria and adjacent parts of Cameroon, and that the zoogeographic barriers separating chimpanzees are different from those previously proposed.

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Figure 1: Localities from which chimpanzee mtDNA was sampled by Morin et al.k .2
Figure 2: Phylogeny derived using a maximum parsimony analysis of chimpanzee mtDNA D-loop sequences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York, Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, 10021, NewYork, USA

    M. Katherine Gonder & John F. Oates

  2. Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, 10003, 25 Waverly Place, NewYork, USA

    Todd R. Disotell

  3. Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, 10027, New York, USA

    Michael R. J. Forstner & Juan Carlos Morales

  4. *Departments of Anthropology and Biological Sciences, Columbia University, 1200 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, 10027, New York, USA

    Don J. Melnick

Authors
  1. M. Katherine Gonder
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  2. John F. Oates
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  3. Todd R. Disotell
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  4. Michael R. J. Forstner
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  5. Juan Carlos Morales
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  6. Don J. Melnick
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Gonder, M., Oates, J., Disotell, T. et al. A new west African chimpanzee subspecies?. Nature 388, 337 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/41005

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