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C. hamlyni specimens and wolf's monkey taxonomy

Posted by NYCAnthropologist on 27 Dec 2012 at 21:26 GMT

I have three comments and ask clarifications from the authors. Two is about two C. hamlyni specimens that were included in the craniodental analysis and the other is about the taxonomy of C. mona wolfi.

1. Two C. hamlyni specimens: According to the AMNH mammalogy database and specimen label, the sex of AMNH 81000 is "unknown", yet this specimen was listed in Table S1 as "female". How and why was this specimen determined as female? Another question relates to "YPM17272". [According to YPM database, YPM 17272 is Holopea sp. (sea snail) from late Odovician. Indeed YPM houses four C. hamlyni specimens <http://bit.ly/WWaiC5&gt;, so this can be assumed as an error of YPM 14272. The problem with "YPM17272 (or correctly YPM 14272)" is that the weight listed in Table S1 (12.5kg) is beyond the range of weight observed in any extant guenon species. If this specimen's label is assumed to have contained an error reported by the collector, can we rightly assume that the cranium of this specimen is indeed C. hamlyni? The reported weight of this specimen is within the range of colobus monkeys or mangabeys. Is it possible that this specimen is not a guenon? This article claims that there are statistically significant differences in craniodental characteristics between C. lomamiensis and C. hamlyni, therefore utmost care must have been made which specimens should or should not be included in the analyses. How was it determined that it was legitimate to include this specimen in the analysis? Or was 12.5 kg just a “typo”?
2. Taxonomy of Cercopithcus mona wolfi: This article reports, “C. lomamiensis were seen associated with other primate species (C. mona wolfi, C. ascanius katangae, Procolobus badius tholloni),” however, wolf’s monkey’s correct taxonomic designation should have been C. pogonias wolfi if authors followed Oates, J.F., Hart, J. & Groves, C.P. 2008. Cercopithecus pogonias ssp. wolfi. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. www.iucnredlist.org or Groves’ (2001) Primate Taxonomy. Cercopithecus mona definitely does not range in the Congo.

No competing interests declared.