Evolutionary theory has long argued that the entrenched rules of development constrain the range of variations in a given form, but few empirical examples are known. Here we provide evidence for a very deeply conserved skeletal module constraining the morphology of the phalanges within a digit. We measured the sizes of phalanges within populations of two bird species and found that successive p...

Flat nails and scutiform distal phalanges characterize the hands and feet of primates. However, these display a variety of forms and combinations: Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea have a distinct pedal grooming claw; Daubentonia has additional claws; Tarsius has two pedal grooming claws; Callithrichidae have claws on fingers and most toes. The adapoid primates Darwinius and Europolemur from Messel hav...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the main factors that influence bone mass in children and teenagers assessed by quantitative ultrasound (QUS) of the phalanges. DATA SOURCE A systematic literature review was performed according to the PRISMA method with searches in databases Pubmed/Medline, SciELO and Bireme for the period 2001-2012, in English and Portuguese languages, using the keywords: children, teen...

OBJECTIVE To assess the maturation disparity of hand-wrist bones using the BoneXpert system and Greulich and Pyle (GP) atlas in a sample of normal children from China. MATERIALS AND METHODS Our study included 229 boys and 168 girls aged 2-14 years. The bones in the hand and wrist were divided into five groups: distal radius and ulna, metacarpals, proximal phalanges, middle phalanges and dista...

BACKGROUND Proximal phalanges in horses are among bones that are most prone to injuries. So far, the detailed analysis of densitometric and geometric parameters of both front legs proximal phalanges in horses has not been investigated. The aim of this study was to compare the densitometric and geometric parameters between proximal phalanges in equine both front legs with the use of peripheral q...

T HE MECHANISMS and clinical settings of the swan-neck deformity (SND) have interested physicians for more than a century. Archibald E. Garrod, son of the famed Sir Alfred Garrod, in his 1890 Treatise on Rheumatism and Rheumatoid Arthritis,’ published an illustrated description of an arthritic deformity of the hand, characterized by “[flexion of] the terminal phalanges upon those of the second ...

Résumé Le traitement des fractures instables des métacarpes et des phalanges reste un objet de controverse. Peu de séries ont été rapportées dans la littérature, rendant leur analyse difficile. Nous rapportons une étude rétrospective comportant 12 patients, opérés par cette technique, ayant eu des fractures déplacées des métacarpes ou des phalanges, sur une période de deux ans. Les résultats gl...

Recent paleontological discoveries in Madagascar document the existence of a diverse clade of palaeopropithecids or "sloth lemurs": Mesopropithecus (three species), Babakotia (one species), Palaeopropithecus (three species), and Archaeoindris (one species). This mini-radiation of now extinct ("subfossil") lemurs is most closely related to the living indrids (Indri, Propithecus, and Avahi). Wher...