The comparative study of postcranial adaptations in nonhuman primates has received treatment in a number of volumes in recent years, including books by Jenkins [ 19741, Day [1981], Schmidt-Nielson [19841, Jungers [1985], and Hildebrand, et al. 119851, as well as chapters scattered throughout other volumes on primate evolutionary biology. Daniel L. Gebo's edited volume Postcranial Adaptation in Nonhuman Primates accomplishes its mission in providing advanced undergraduates and graduate students of primatology an excellent sourcebook for current approaches to the study of biomechanics and functional anatomy. This compendium represents a welcome addition to a literature that seldom provides the unacquainted reader with the formulae and basic concepts used for describing the structure and function of postcranial anatomy. All participants in this edited volume have done an excellent service in defining and explaining terminology used in the study of biomechanics and illustrating these principles with anatomical and behavioral examples.
The book is organized into three parts: The first treats biomechanical principles, the second introduces the primate body, and the third part focuses on extinct primates. The first part, authored by Sharon Swartz, is one of the most clear and concise treatments of biomechanics that has appeared in the literature. Richly illustrated, this section does an outstanding job of explaining and applying the usually opaque principles of physics to functional morphology. Part two, on the primate body, contains chapters by Susan Larson (shoulder), Michael Rose (elbow and forelimb), Paul Whitehead (wrist and hand), Liza Shapiro (vertebral column), Robert Anemone (hip and thigh), and Daniel Gebo (foot). Each author has succeeded in "making the bones breathe" by adding behavioral significance to morphology and providing contrasting examples of different anatomical plans. The basics of the structurelfunction relationships that are normally associated with introductory texts are also enlivened by each author inserting his or her current research into the chapters. This makes the book instructive to students by showing the application of functional morphology to research design and provides new information to those already familiar with basic concepts.
The first two sections provide the reader with the tools necessary to make the extrapolations proposed in the final part of the book on extinct primates. This part contains chapters by Marian Dagosto, Daniel Gebo, Jeff Meldrum, and Michael Rose. The chapter by Dagosto compares the postcranial anatomy of Eocene primates. This review is exceptional because it brings together the wealth of information generated from the AdapidIOmomyid debates and relates this information to analogous living forms. Chapters by Gebo on postcranial anatomy in early African anthropoids and by Meldrum on fossil platyrrhines illustrate the antiquity of diversity in ecological and locomotor specializations of the primate order. The