Species, Species Concepts and Primate Evolution

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Species in Evolutionary Theory

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. What, If Anything, Is a Species?

      • Niles Eldredge

      Pages 3-20

   3. Species Concepts

      • Frederick S. Szalay

      Pages 21-41

   4. Primates and Paradigms

      • J. C. Masters

      Pages 43-64

3. Speciation and Variation among the Living Primates

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

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   2. Species, Subspecies, and Baboon Systematics

      • Clifford J. Jolly

      Pages 67-107

   3. Speciation in Living Hominoid Primates

      • Colin P. Groves

      Pages 109-121

   4. Geographic Variation in Primates

      • Gene H. Albrecht, Joseph M. A. Miller

      Pages 123-161

   5. Speciation and Morphological Differentiation in the Genus Lemur

      • Ian Tattersall

      Pages 163-176

   6. Squirrel Monkey (Genus Saimiri) Taxonomy

      • Robert K. Costello, C. Dickinson, A. L. Rosenberger, S. Boinski, Frederick S. Szalay

      Pages 177-210

   7. Measures of Dental Variation as Indicators of Multiple Taxa in Samples of Sympatric Cercopithecus Species

      • Dana A. Cope

      Pages 211-237

   8. Catarrhine Dental Variability and Species Recognition in the Fossil Record

      • J. Michael Plavcan

      Pages 239-263

   9. Multivariate Craniometric Variation in Chimpanzees

      • Brian T. Shea, Steven R. Leigh, Colin P. Groves

      Pages 265-296

4. Species and Species Recognition in the Primate Fossil Record

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 297-297

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   2. Species Concepts and Species Recognition in Eocene Primates

      • Kenneth D. Rose, Thomas M. Bown

      Pages 299-330

   3. Anagenetic Angst

      • Leonard Krishtalka

      Pages 331-344

   4. Cladistic Concepts and the Species Problem in Hominoid Evolution

      • Terry Harrison

      Pages 345-371

   5. Species Discrimination in Proconsul from Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, Kenya

      • M. F. Teaford, A. Walker, G. S. Mugaisi

      Pages 373-392

   6. Species Recognition in Middle Miocene Hominoids

      • Lawrence B. Martin, Peter Andrews

      Pages 393-427

A world of categones devmd of spirit waits for life to return. Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift The stock-in-trade of communicating hypotheses about the historical path of evolution is a graphical representation called a phylogenetic tree. In most such graphics, pairs of branches diverge from other branches, successively marching across abstract time toward the present. To each branch is tied a tag with a name, a binominal symbol that functions as does the name given to an individual human being. On phylogenetic trees the names symbolize species. What exactly do these names signify? What kind of information is communicated when we claim to have knowledge of the following types? "Tetonius mathewzi was ancestral to Pseudotetonius ambiguus. " "The sample of fossils attributed to Homo habzlis is too variable to contain only one species. " "Interbreeding populations of savanna baboons all belong to Papio anubis. " "Hylobates lar and H. pileatus interbreed in zones of geographic overlap. " Whilethere is nearly universal agreement that the notion of the speczes is fundamental to our understanding of how evolution works, there is a very wide range of opinion on the conceptual content and meaning of such particular statements regarding species. This is because, oddly enough, evolutionary biolo­ gists are quite far from agreement on what a species is, how it attains this status, and what role it plays in evolution over the long term.

• evolution
• primates
• systematics
• taxonomy

• Institute of Human Origins, Berkeley, USA

  William H. Kimbel

• State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA

  Lawrence B. Martin

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