A hyaena on stilts: comparison of the limb morphology of Ictitherium ebu (Mammalia: Hyaenidae) from the Late Miocene of Lothagam, Turkana Basin, Kenya with extant Canidae and Hyaenidae

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Paleontology and Evolutionary Science

Main article text

 

Introduction

Materials & Methods

Specimen collection

Linear morphometrics

Index calculations

Image collection

Truss creation

Software and graphics

Permutational multivariate analysis of variance

Non-metric multidimensional scaling

Stepwise flexible discriminant analysis

Results

Linear morphometrics

Permutational analysis of variance

Non-metric multidimensional scaling

Flexible discriminant analysis

Truss analysis

Non-metric multidimensional scaling

Flexible discriminant analysis

Discussion

Flexible discriminant analysis validation

Permutational analysis of variance

Size differences

Shape differences

Phylogenetic signal

The ecomorphology of I. ebu

Conclusions

Supplemental Information

Linear measurements used to calculate indices for the linear analysis

The linear measurements sheet contains the raw data used to calculate indices for the linear analysis. The second sheet contains definitions of the measurement abbreviations.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-1

Corrections and deletions of specimen measurements from the dataset

Indices derived from removed values were replaced by means of the same index for the same species in the index dataset.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-2

Specimens excluded from the Truss analysis

Most of these specimens did not have the distal humerus correctly aligned with the camera.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-3

Coordinates of the six landmarks of the truss analysis

X-coordinates represented as X. Y-coordinates represented as Y. Numbers indicate the landmarks according to Andersson (2004) (Fig. 4).

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-4

Shapiro–Wilks normality tests of the linear morphometrics and truss ratios

W is the test-statistic, p is the significance. Index definitions are included in a separate sheet.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-5

Goodness of fit values for every specimen of the NMDS of the linear morphometrics

A lower goodness of fit value corresponds to the data being more monotonic to the original distances (Legendre & Legendre, 1998).

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-6

The indices selected for determining variables for stepwise analysis

The “overall” p and F values represent the values of the original model, while the “diff” p and F values compare the model with the new variable with the model excluding it (Weihs et al., 2005). Index definitions are included in a separate sheet.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-7

Pairwise PERMANOVAs and their differences for the linear morphometrics

The mean and standard deviation of the data, as well as significant differences between species as a result of pairwise PERMANOVAs. The other tables contain: pairs of species compared (pairs), degrees of freedom (Df), sum of squares (SumOfSq), F-statistic of the model (F), R-squared of the model (R2), p-value, the Holm corrected p-value (p-adjusted) and if the PERMANOVA was significant (sig) (with a dot if the value is significant under p.adjusted) (Holm, 1979); Martinez (Arbizu, 2020). Ie is Ictitherium ebu, Cb is the maned wolf, Cc is the spotted hyaena, Hh is the striped hyaena, Pc is the aardwolf, Pb is the spotted hyaena, Clu is the wolf, Vv is the red fox, La is the side-striped jackal, Cla is the coyote.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-8

I. ebu comparison code

The three datasets and the code itself. I_ebu_code.R is all the code used to run the statistics for the paper. Indices.xlsx are the indices used for the linear morphometrics converted from the measurement data (see Table S1). Coloured values are interpolated means for removed outliers (see Table S2). Truss.xlsx contains the distances calculated from the truss models of the elbow joints.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-9

Shepard plot of the NMDS of the linear morphometrics

The x-axis represents the original distances between points in the data. The y-axis represents the distances adjusted by the NMDS. R2 is a measure of the goodness of fit, which is highest at 1.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-10

Shepard plot of the NMDS of the truss analysis

The x-axis represents the original distances between points in the data. The y-axis represents the distances adjusted by the NMDS. R2 is a measure of the goodness of fit, which is highest at 1.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-11

Boxplots of the morphological indices

(A) Shoulder moment index. (B) Branchial index. (C) Humeral robustness index. (D) Humeral epicondylar index. (E) Olecranon length index. (F) Ulnar robustness index. (G) Femoral robustness index. (H) Gluteal index. (I) Femoral epicondylar index. (J) Radial robustness index. (K) Metacarpal radial index. (L) Metacarpal humeral index. (M) Humeral femoral index. C = Coyote, W = Wolf, Mw = Maned wolf, Sp = Spotted Hyaena, St = Striped hyaena, Ie = Ictitherium ebu, Sj = Side-striped jackal, Bh = Brown hyaena, Aw = Aardwolf, F = Fox.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-12

(A) Family, (B) locomotion and (C) habitat model strip charts

Points are jittered to allow for a clearer view of the data. Groups are labelled by colour, species by shape. The silhouette of I.ebu is in black. The prediction of I. ebu is plotted as a line. Extant species are in grey. The coyote is plotted as a dot-dash line and the brown hyaenas are plotted as dashed lines. Silhouette of Ictitherium ebu traced from the reconstruction by Javier Herbozo. Extant species silhouettes from Phylopic (Keesey, 2023): Brown hyaena: https://www.phylopic.org/images/55b1ad9b-93d5-4fa9-83a5-4231c07c8620/hyaena-brunnea. Coyote: https://www.phylopic.org/images/5a0398e3-a455-4ca6-ba86-cf3f1b25977a/canis-latrans.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-13

Family (A), locomotion (B) and habitat (C) model strip charts

Points are jittered to allow for a clearer view of the data. Groups are labelled by colour, species by shape. The silhouette of I.ebu is in black. The prediction of I. ebu is plotted as a line. Extant species are in grey. The coyote is plotted as a dot-dash line and the brown hyaenas are plotted as dashed lines. Silhouette of Ictitherium ebu traced from the reconstruction by Javier Herbozo. Extant species silhouettes from Phylopic (Keesey, 2023): Brown hyaena: https://www.phylopic.org/images/55b1ad9b-93d5-4fa9-83a5-4231c07c8620/hyaena-brunnea. Coyote: https://www.phylopic.org/images/5a0398e3-a455-4ca6-ba86-cf3f1b25977a/canis-latrans.

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-14

Reconstruction of Ictitherium ebu by Javier Herbozo

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17405/supp-15

Additional Information and Declarations

Competing Interests

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Julien van der Hoek conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the article, and approved the final draft.

Lars Werdelin conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the article, and approved the final draft.

Data Availability

The following information was supplied regarding data availability:

The raw data and code are available in the Supplemental File.

Funding

Julien van der Hoek received funding from the Otterborg Scholarship fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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