Bipedalism in non-human primates: a comparative review of behavioural and experimental explorations on catarrhines

Abstract

Non-human primates are commonly used as comparative models to investigate the evolutionary origins of habitual bipedal walking. After almost a century of research in the field of behaviour and functional anatomy, the need for integrative analyses is being widely discussed. In that perspective, the purpose of this note is to report on the available literature on quantitative behavioural and experimental studies of bipedalism in catarrhines. Examples are given of their respective contributions to fundamental knowledge on bipedalism in non-human primates. We then introduce various prospects for integrative explorations with a view to developing evolutionary hypotheses and to improve existing fundamental knowledge through experimental studies of the bipedal walking function in its ecological and behavioural contexts.