Estimation of African apes’ body size from postcranial dimensions

Abstract

We examine how African apes' postcranial skeletal dimensions and their combinations are related to body size, as represented by trunk volume, within sex-specific samples of a total of 39 central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and 34 western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). We examine this relationship by determining the strength of the correlation between selected skeletal dimensions and trunk volume. The findings indicate that sex should be taken into account when possible. Most two-predictor models perform better than most single-predictor models. Interspecific regressions based on log-transformed variables and sex/species-specific regression based on raw variables perform about equally well.