[Taxacom] Chimps and humans

[Kenneth Kinman]

John,
      I should note that I misspelled the name.  It is actually
Plasmodium pitheci.  And also, below is more information on the 2004
paper, which morphologically supports a specific chimp-human clade that
agrees with the molecular topology.
      --------Ken

Morphometrics and hominoid phylogeny: Support for a chimpanzee-human
clade and differentiation among great ape subspecies Charles A.
Lockwood, William H. Kimbel, and
John M. Lynch, 2004.
Abstract      
Taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses of great apes and humans have
identified two potential areas of conflict between molecular and
morphological data: phylogenetic relationships among living species and
differentiation of great ape subspecies. Here we address these problems
by using morphometric data. Three-dimensional landmark data from the
hominoid temporal bone effectively quantify the shape of a complex
element of the skull. Phylogenetic analysis using distance-based methods
corroborates the molecular consensus on African ape and human phylogeny,
strongly supporting a Panâ€"Homo clade. Phenetic differentiation of
great ape subspecies is pronounced, as suggested previously by
mitochondrial DNA and some morphological studies. These results show
that the hominoid temporal bone contains a strong phylogenetic signal
and reveal the potential for geometric morphometric analysis to shed
light on phylogenetic relationships.