Functional morphology of the mammalian forelimb skeleton and the details of its joints have been explored and discussed in great depth relative to other postcranial regions, despite potential difficulties with interpreting the morphology of this region. The mammalian forelimb performs a variety of biological roles, including postural, locomotor, feeding, exploratory, grooming, and defense related behaviors. Detailed morphology might therefore reflect several overlapping functions and compromises between various demands. Much work has focused on primates, with a particular interest in climbing and rotational mechanics of the shoulder and elbow (e.g., Roberts, 1974; Roberts and Davidson, 1975; Fleagle and Simons, 1982; Rose, 1988, 1989; Harrison, 1989; Ciochon, 1993; Gebo and Sargis, 1994). Function-based analyses of mammalian diggers such as geomyids and vermilinguans focus on aspects of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist that correlate with digging and movement of soil (e.g., Campbell, 1939; Reed, 1951; Yalden, 1966; Taylor, 1978, 1985; Rose and Emry, 1983; Szalay and Schrenk, 1998; Stein, 2000). Studies of proportional differences and details of the shoulder and elbow joints in cursorial mammals have identified a suite of characteristics associated with lengthening the stride and stabilizing joints in the parasagittal plane for high-speed locomotion (e.g., Hopwood, 1947; Smith and Savage, 1956; Taylor, 1974; Hildebrand, 1995). There has been less published work on the functional morphology of aquatic mammals (but see Osburn 1903; Howell, 1970; Smith and Savage, 1956; Kerbis Peterhans and Patterson, 1995). This chapter is a comparative morphological study of the tenrecoid scapula, humerus, ulna, and radius, with particular emphasis on the shoulder and elbow joints. The following questions are addressed:
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(1)
Do aspects of the tenrecoid forelimb exhibit intergeneric variation that correlate with expected differences based on positional behavior in other mammalian locomotor specialists?
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(2)
Do taxon-specific features of the tenrecoid forelimb suggest phylogenetic affiliation among members of the tenrecoid subfamilies, such as those found in the hindlimb?
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(3)
Do Solenodon, Petrodromus, and/or Echinosorex share characteristics of the forelimb with tenrecoids that might be phylogenetically meaningful?
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Salton, J.A., Sargis, E.J. (2008). Evolutionary Morphology of the Tenrecoidea (Mammalia) Forelimb Skeleton. In: Sargis, E.J., Dagosto, M. (eds) Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6997-0_4
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