The subfossil monkey femur and subfossil monkey tibia of the Antilles: A review

Abstract

The proximal portion of a subfossil monkey femur found in a Jamaican cave shares all the femoral characters of a mature male Cebus apella.The fragment alone, however, does not prove conspecificity. The Jamaican femur is also of a size that could belong to the extinct Xenothrix mcgregoriof the same island. In contrast, the distal portion of a monkey tibia recovered from a kitchen midden in the Dominican Republic cannot be identified with that of any known living platyrrhine or catarrhine monkey. Geological age, geographic locality, and size of fragment point to probable alignment of the tibia with the recently extinct cebid Saimiri bernensis.Although no conclusive identifications are made, the distinctive characters of the two limb bones are described on the basis of comparisons with femurs and tibias representing all genera of living platyrrhines, most genera of catarrhine monkeys, and some strepsirhines.