Anneke H. van Heteren

Zoologische Staatssammlung München - Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns

Objectives As hands and feet are serially repeated corresponding structures in tetrapods, the morphology of fingers and toes is expected to covary due to a shared developmental origin. The present study focuses on the covariation of the shape of proximal finger and toe phalanges of adult Homo sapiens to determine whether covariation is different in...

Homo luzonensis, a fossil hominin from the Philippines, is smaller than modern humans. At present, very little is known about the life history of this species. Cementochronology can answer life history questions, but usually involves destructive sampling. Here, we use synchrotron radiation to count the yearly cement lines of teeth belonging to a si...

We propose a new method for denoising of 3D CT scans with few data. Like any other form of imaging data, CT scans are susceptible to noise and artifacts. Noise in CT scan images is not only stochastic, but can be frequency dependent and introduced by the measuring device itself or by signal processing algorithms. Unfortunately, most state-of-the-ar...

Sciurus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758, the red squirrel, is a small, mostly arboreally living rodent, spread across the Palearctic. It is mostly vegetarian, feeding on plants, fungi and seeds, and is less active in the winter months, but does not hibernate. In this lateral study, the humeri of the subspecies Sciurus vulgaris fuscoater , the Central Europ...

The Namur area in Belgium is useful to study brown (Ursus arctos) and cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) as the assemblagecontains little temporal and no geographical variation. Here, we aim to assess ontogenetic allometry within cave bears,as well as ecomorphological differences between adult brown bears (n = 9), adult cave bears (n = 5) and juvenile cav...

Varanids are the only non-avian sauropsids that are known to approach the warm-blooded mammals in stamina. Furthermore, a much higher maximum metabolic rate (MMR) gives endotherms (including birds) higher stamina than crocodiles, turtles, and non-varanid lepidosaurs. This has led researchers to hypothesize that mammalian endothermy evolved as a sec...

The extinct Haast's eagle or harpagornis ( Hieraaetus moorei ) is the largest known eagle. Historically, it was first considered a predator, then a scavenger, but most recent authors have favoured an active hunting ecology. However, the veracity of proposed similarities to carrion feeders has not been thoroughly tested. To infer feeding capability...

Brown bears (Ursus arctos) diverged from the cave bear lineage c. 1.2 million years ago and likely originated in Asia, where the oldest fossils belong to a Middle Pleistocene chronology. Brown bear fossils from the Middle Pleistocene are scarce in the Iberian Peninsula, especially when compared to the cave bear record and they are mainly located in...

Díez Díaz, V.; Belvedere, M.; Böhmer, C.; Bueno, E.; Choiniere, J.; Darlim, G.; Drozdz, D.; Iannucci, A.; Kotthoff, U.; Malafaia, E.; Mallison, H.; Marigó, J.; Miedema, F.;Mujal, E.; Pardo, J.; Perillo, M.; Sciscio, L.; Tajika, A.; Tschopp, E.; van Heteren, A.H.; Vlachos, E. 2021. How to bring taxonomy into the third dimension: developing guideline...

Ring artifacts are a type of reconstruction artifact that is common in X-Ray CT. Recently, methods based on deep learning have been proposed to reduce ring artifacts in reconstructed images. These methods are dependent on the choice of reconstruction algorithm and often rely on a polar coordinate transformation. Methods that directly operate in sin...

The traditional terminology of ‘scythe’ or ‘sickle’ shaped is observed to be flawed as an effective descriptor for pectoral fin shape in pachycormids. The diversity of pachycormid pectoral fin shapes is assessed across the 14 recognised genera that preserve complete pectoral fins, and improved terms are defined to more effectively describe their fo...

Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix collected many interesting zoological specimens during his travels in South America from 1817 to 1820. The type specimens of Neotropical primates described by Spix (1823), which are stored at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology (German: Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlun...

In this issue, we cover an exceptional topic in Vertebrate Paleobiology that has been an enjoyable challenge for scientists and the popular media alike: the life and death of the Pleistocene cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). As an icon of the ice-age, the cave bear inhabited the glacial ecosystems of Eurasia, and it was the inspiration of a popular book...

Sciuromorph rodents are a monophyletic group comprising about 300 species with a body mass range spanning three orders of magnitude and various locomotor behaviors that we categorized into arboreal, fossorial and aerial. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the interplay of locomotor ecology and body mass affects the morphology of the s...

The diet of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is a controversial topic, as different paleobiological approaches (e.g. dental wear, isotopic biochemistry, skull morphometrics) result in different dietary inferences for the cave bear, ranging from carnivory to pure herbivory. Here, we review the main results obtained from these approaches, with special...

The morphology of both crowns and tooth-roots reflects dietary specialisation in mammalian carnivores. In this article, we analyse the tooth-root morphology of maxillary teeth from CT scans of living bears (Ursus arctos, Ursus americanus, Ursus maritimus, Ursus thibetanus, Melursus ursinus, Helarctos malayanus, Tremarctos ornatus and Ailuropoda mela...

Deninger’s bears (Ursus deningeri) have been studied less frequently than Ursus spelaeus s.l. Our objective is to present, for the first time, an analysis of the skull shape of U. deningeri. Bear crania and mandibles were digitised with a Microscribe or CT-scanned and the surface models subsequently landmarked. The landmarks were chosen based on a...

Background: Sloths are one of only two exceptions to the mammalian 'rule of seven' vertebrae in the neck. As a striking case of breaking the evolutionary constraint, the explanation for the exceptional number of cervical vertebrae in sloths is still under debate. Two diverging hypotheses, both ultimately linked to the low metabolic rate of sloths,...

Background Sciuromorpha (squirrels and close relatives) are diverse in terms of body size and locomotor behavior. Individual species are specialized to perform climbing, gliding or digging behavior, the latter being the result of multiple independent evolutionary acquisitions. Each lifestyle involves characteristic loading patterns acting on the bo...

Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that has provided the universal naming and classification system of biodiversity for centuries and continues effectively to accommodate new knowledge. A recent publication by Garnett and Christidis [1] expressed concerns regarding the difficulty that taxonomic changes represent for conservation efforts and propos...

The dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) might be the most enigmatic bird of all times. It is, therefore, highly remarkable that no consensus has yet been reached on its body mass; previous scientific estimates of its mass vary by more than 100%. Until now, the vast amount of bones stored at the Natural History Museum in Mauritius has not yet been studied mo...

Supplementary Information 2: Raw data for the modern birds. Raw circumference measurements on the modern birds. Details on abbreviations can be found in the “legend” tab.

Supplementary Information 1: Raw length and circumference measurements on 174 dodo femora. Raw circumference measurements on 174 dodo femora, as well as mass estimates based on various regressions. Details to abbreviations can be found in the “legend” tab.

Background Bone structure has a crucial role in the functional adaptations that allow vertebrates to conduct their diverse lifestyles. Much has been documented regarding the diaphyseal structure of long bones of tetrapods. However, the architecture of trabecular bone, which is for instance found within the epiphyses of long bones, and which has bee...

Aplication of a novel virtual and non-invasive method to estimate areas of trabecular and cortical bone across the skull of living bears to make inferences on the controversial feeding behaviour of the cave bear (U. s. spelaeus)

The dental study from the occlosual area and the area between the root and the dental crown in bears, has allowed to anaiyze the relationship between bite force and diet. We analized from CT scan of the 8 species of living bears an two species of extinct cave bears

A profound understanding of the influence of trackmaker anatomy, foot movements and substrate properties is crucial for any interpretation of fossil tracks. In this case study we analyze variability of footprint shape within one large theropod (T3), one medium-sized theropod (T2) and one ornithopod (I1) trackway from the Lower Cretaceous of Müncheh...

Principal component analysis results of steepest slope approach

Measurements of trackway parameters

High-resolution version of the sitemap Sitemap based on photogrammetric data showing the three analyzed trackways (T3, T2, and I1), which represent some of the longest dinosaur trackways from Germany. The proximal sections of the T3 and I1 trackways, excavated before 2011, were not included because photogrammetric documentation is not available. Po...

The dodo Raphus cucullatus Linnaeus, 1758, an extinct and flightless, giant pigeon endemic to Mauritius, has fascinated people since its discovery, yet has remained surprisingly poorly known. Until the mid-19th century, almost all that was known about the dodo was based on illustrations and written accounts by 17th century mariners, often of questi...

The diet of the fossil cave bears (Ursus spelaeus group) has been debated extensively. Thought traditionally to be herbivorous, more recent studies have proposed more meat in the cave bear diet. To test this, the mandibular morphology of cave bears was analysed using 3D geometric morphometrics and compared to that of extant Ursidae. Landmarks for 3...

List of specimens used in the analyses.

Identification and interpretation of bone tissue types is the primary goal of histological analysis. Lamellar bone, a fundamental tissue, is generally easily identifiable in polarized microscopy. It is important, however, to understand the formation and structure of the tissues that are being studied. Lamellae are widely accepted to form a plywood-...

The diet of the fossil bear Ursus spelaeus has been debated extensively. U. spelaeus is thought to have been herbivorous, but the exact composition of its diet remains unclear. To test this, the cranial morphology of U. spelaeus was analysed using 3D geometric morphometrics and compared to that of extant Ursidae. An approach including the Ursus spe...

The fossil remains of Homo floresiensis have been debated extensively over the past few years. This paper will give a brief summary of the current debate, which can be summed up in three main competing explanations for the morphology of the type specimen: pathology, descendent of an early australopith-like hominin, or insular descendent of H. erect...

In 1970, Verhoeven and Maringer found stone implements on the surface of Mengeruda (an area including the sites Boaleza, Lembahmenge and Matamenge) and Ola Bula on Flores, which were similar to those found in Sangiran by von Koenigswald and Ghosh on Java. This, among other things, led von Koenigswald and Ghosh to compare the findings from Flores wi...

Intraspecific variation within the Pleistocene cave bear Ursus spelaeus sensu lato has been discussed extensively. Recently, several subspecies and even species have been proposed based on morphological and ancient DNA analyses. To test this proposal, the mandibular morphology of U. spelaeus s.l. was analysed using 3D geometric morphometrics. Vario...

The diet of the cave bear group (Ursus spelaeus) has been debated extensively. Traditionally, U. spelaeus was thought to be herbivorous, but more recently studies have shown that it was potentially omnivorous. Presented here is a preliminary study using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics on mandibles of U. spelaeus and its congeners. Multiva...

Homo floresiensis is a small bodied hominin from the Indonesian island Flores. The type specimen, lB1, is believed to be a female of approximately 1 m or a bit more than 3 feet in length with a cranial capacity of around 400 cc. There is still no agreement on the cause of the small stature and small cranial capacity of lB1 and the associated indivi...

Homo floresiensis is a small bodied hominin from the Indonesian island Flores. Homo floresiensis displays several island adaptations, which also have been observed among the members of other typical island faunas. These features are all characterized by the fact that they are associated with pedomorphism i.e. adult indivuals look like the juveniles...