Hausler & Schmid (1995) challenged the long held opinion that AL 288-1 (Australopithecus afarensis), popularly known as "Lucy," was female. They concluded that AL 288-1 was most probably male ("Lucifer") and, by extension, the hypodigm for A.…
Allen's Rule documents a century-old biological observation that strong positive correlations exist among latitude, ambient temperature, and limb length in mammals. Although genetic selection for thermoregulatory adaptation is frequently presumed to…
There is significant diversity in growth plate behavior among sites within an individual skeleton and between skeletons of different species. This variation within wild-type animals is an underutilized resource for studying skeletal development. One…
The first mammalian metapodial (MP1) has periodically been argued to actually be a phalanx, because the first ray has one less element than the four posterior rays, and because the MP1 growth plate is proximal like those of all phalanges, rather than…
Mammalian metapodials (metacarpals and metatarsals), unlike most long bones, form a single growth plate, and undergo longitudinal growth at only one end. The growth dynamics of non-mammalian tetrapod metapodials have not been systematically examined…
