Affinites of tertiary hominoid femora.

Uni- and multivariate analyses of 244 extant and 4 fossil primate femora indicate that none of the Tertiary hominoid fossil femora resembles the great apes. The dryopithecine femur from Moboko, Kenya, is most like Nasalis. Pliopithecus and the fossil from Eppelsheim are similar to one another and to Hylobates, but unlike the African dryopithecine. A new specimen from the Miocene deposits of Songhor, Kenya, is very similar to Hylobates and is probably a member of the hylobatine taxon, Lomnopithecus macinnesi. The lack of similarity between the African dryopithecine femur and the femora of the extant great apes in further evidence that the typical hominoid postcranial morphology evolved after the middle Miocene period.