The Hispaniola monkey (''Antillothrix bernensis'') is an extinct
primate
Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...
that was
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
on the island of
Hispaniola
Hispaniola (, also ) is an island between Geography of Cuba, Cuba and Geography of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by List of C ...
, in the present-day
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
. The species is thought to have gone extinct around the 16th century. The exact timing and cause of the extinction are unclear, but it is likely related to the
settlement of Hispaniola by Europeans after 1492.
Description
Horovitz and MacPhee developed the
hypothesis
A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...
, first proposed by MacPhee et al., that all the
Antillean
The Antilles is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east.
The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater An ...
monkeys (the others being the two
Cuban monkey
''Paralouatta'' is a platyrrhine genus that currently contains two extinct species of small primates that lived on the island of Cuba.
Description
''Paralouatta varonai'' was described from a nearly complete cranium from the late Quaternary i ...
species of genus ''Paralouatta'', and the
Jamaican monkey
The Jamaican monkey (''Xenothrix mcgregori'') is an extinct species of New World monkey that was endemic to Jamaica. It was first uncovered at Long Mile Cave by Harold Anthony in 1920.
Discovery
Harold Anthony is responsible for many species ...
, ''Xenothrix mcgregori'') belonged to a
monophyletic
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria:
# the grouping contains its own most recent co ...
group linked most closely with the modern genus ''
Callicebus
''Callicebus'' is a genus of monkeys known as titi monkeys.
Historically, titis were monogeneric, comprising only the genus ''Callicebus'' Thomas, 1903. Owing to the great diversity found across titi monkey species, a new genus-level taxonomy wa ...
''. They later assigned the Antillean monkeys to the tribe
Xenotrichini
Xenotrichini (the Antilles monkeys) is a Tribe (biology), tribe of extinct primates, which lived on the Greater Antilles as recently as the 16th century.
These Caribbean islands no longer contain endemism, endemic primates, although the most rec ...
– the
sister group
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and ...
of the tribe
Callicebini with extensive anatomical comparisons and by extending their
parsimony analysis using PAUP*. They maintained that the monophyly of the Antillean monkeys was still supported in the most parsimonious trees, but in slightly less parsimonious trees, ''Aotus'' appeared to be linked with ''Xenothrix''.
Skull discovery
In July 2009, Walter Pickel found a ''A. bernensis'' skull while diving in underwater caves. The skull was found in the
La Jeringa Cave
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
*La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
*"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...
of
Cotubanamá National Park
Cotubanamá National Park (formerly ) is located on the lower southeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, spanning across the provinces of La Altagracia and La Romana with an area of which includes a range of dense humid and dry subtropical ...
. The skull, long bones and ribs were recovered by Walter Pickel and Curt Bowen in October 2009 under the supervision of the Dominican Republic and Alfred L. Rosenberger from Brooklyn College. The discovery supported the MacPhee et al. hypothesis of a monophyletic origin of the Antilles monkeys. This 2009 discovery of the skull suggested that these primates were diurnal, due to their relatively smaller ocular orbits.
New specimens published in 2024
New specimens recovered in 2018 from Cueva Macho included four
crania and three
mandibles
In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla).
The jawbone i ...
. Both a cranium and mandible exhibited absent
wisdom teeth
The third molar, commonly called wisdom tooth, is the most posterior of the three molars in each quadrant of the human dentition. The age at which wisdom teeth come through ( erupt) is variable, but this generally occurs between late teens a ...
, which is rare in most primates. Though previously, hypotheses regarding smaller
relative brain size than normal and
sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
had been posited, these new specimens evidence neither of these claims. Instead, the authors posit that Hispaniolan monkeys were "a morphologically variable but monomorphic species."
See also
*
Fossil primates of Central and South America and the Caribbean
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q844989
†Hispaniola monkey
Prehistoric monkeys
Mammal extinctions since 1500
Prehistoric mammals of North America
Endemic fauna of Hispaniola
Mammals of Hispaniola
Extinct animals of the Dominican Republic
Fossils of the Dominican Republic
Mammals of the Dominican Republic
Mammals described in 1977