Morphology of the dentofacial complex of early hominins has figured prominently in the inference of their dietary adaptations. Recent theoretical analysis of craniofacial morphology of Australopithecus africanus proposes that skull form in this taxon represents adaptation to feeding on large, hard objects. A modern analog for this specific dietary specialization is provided by the West African sooty mangabey, Cercocebus atys. This species habitually feeds on the large, exceptionally hard nuts of Sacoglottis gabonensis, stereotypically crushing the seed casings using their premolars and molars. This type of behavior has been inferred for A. africanus based on mathematical stress analysis and aspects of dental wear and morphology. While postcanine megadontia, premolar enlargement and thick molar enamel characterize both A. africanus and C. atys, these features are not universally associated with durophagy among living anthropoids. Occlusal microwear analysis reveals complex microwear textures in C. atys unlike those observed in A. africanus, but more closely resembling textures observed in Paranthropus robustus. Since sooty mangabeys process hard objects in a manner similar to that proposed for A. africanus, yet do so without the craniofacial buttressing characteristic of this hominin, it follows that derived features of the australopith skull are sufficient but not necessary for the consumption of large, hard objects. The adaptive significance of australopith craniofacial morphology may instead be related to the toughness, rather than the hardness, of ingested foods.

Côte d'Ivoire is the world's leading cocoa producer, annually generating over 1,500,000 metric tons of Theobroma cacao beans. Growth of this agri-business has led to extensive deforestation in Côte d'Ivoire, where the majority of the country's forest (excluding that in Tai National Park) exists as small, fragmented forest islands. Most of these forest blocks are designated as national parks or forest reserves, i.e., protected areas (PAs), but wildlife within Côte d'Ivoire's PAs is increasingly threatened by two illegal activities: hunting and full sun cocoa farming. In this paper, we investigate the impact of cocoa production on primate populations inside protected areas. We surveyed twenty three PAs (5 national parks, 18 forest reserves) in Côte d'Ivoire to determine (1) the number of primate taxa present, (2) the number of human inhabitants living adjacent to or within each PA, (3) the extent of overall habitat degradation, and (4) the extent of habitat degradation due to cocoa farming. Our data reveal a significant positive correlation (r² = .736, p < .01, α = 0.01) between cocoa farming and the absence of primate species inside Côte d'Ivoire's national parks and forest reserves. Thirteen of 23 protected areas surveyed have lost all primate populations, and four taxa -Colobus vellerosus (white-thighed black and white colobus), Colobus polykomos (Western black and white colobus), Procolobus badius waldroni (Miss Waldron's red colobus) and Procolobus badius badius (Bay colobus) -were not found in any PAs we visited. Aggressive conservation action is needed to curb hunting throughout Côte d'Ivoire, but unless illegal cocoa farming is similarly controlled, even effective enforcement of anti-hunting laws will not prevent the loss of additional primate diversity, since habitats capable of supporting primate populations -including those within protected areas -will no longer exist.

For most Ivorian regions quantitative data on the exploitation of bushmeat by local communities are scarce. We studied hunting patterns around Dassioko Sud Forest Reserve, a remnant coastal forest in south-eastern Côte d'Ivoire, through a 6-month survey of nine restaurants, in three villages surrounding the Reserve. We collected quantitative and qualitative data on the bushmeat brought to restaurants, as well as the final price for which it was sold. We calculated mean prices over the study period and extrapolated to the whole year. A total of 376 mammals (98%) and eight reptiles (2%) were sold in the restaurants surveyed. Rodents and small antelopes represented 74% of the mammals sold, probably reflecting the fact that reproductive strategists persist more successfully in heavily hunted and/or agricultural landscapes, such as the area around the Reserve. Our conservative estimate of the total biomass of bushmeat harvested annually around the Reserve is c. 40,428.03 kg (c. 11,886 animals), with a monetary value of c. FCFA 47,728,516 (c. USD 93,485.75 ), yielding an annual income of c. USD10,387.31 per person, which exceeds the mean annual income of cocoa farmers (FCFA 466,032/USD 932) more than tenfold. Although the sustainability of the bushmeat trade in the surveyed area remains unknown, we showed that hunters predominantly used cable snares, the Reserve was significantly affected by hunting activities (c. 53% of the bushmeat originated there), and larger mammalian species had been extirpated. A lack of effective protection exposes the Reserve to multiple illegal activities, including hunting, a situation exacerbated by the political crisis in 2010.

Stampflii's putty-nosed monkeys Cercopithecus nictitans stampflii are large, rare, poorly known guenons with a discontinuous distribution in West Africa. Putty-nosed monkeys occur at low densities in Ivory Coast's Tai National Park where they are believed to have migrated from less forested regions north of the park (Eckardt and Zuberbühler: Behav Ecol 15 (2004) 400-411). In this article, we compare the positional behavior of Putty-nosed monkeys to that of three other guenon species in the Tai Forest and provide an additional test of the relationship among locomotion, body size, maintenance activity, and habitat use in generalized arboreal quadrupeds. Our results indicate that putty-nosed monkeys confine the great majority of their locomotion to the main canopy where most movement occurs on boughs and branches. Comparison of overall locomotor frequencies across the four Tai guenon species reveals a general pattern; quadrupedalism accounts for at least 70% of the total profile, climbing ranges between 15 and 20%, and leaping accounts for 5-10% of total movement. The overall locomotor consistency among the taxa, especially between putty-nosed and Diana monkeys, is significant considering marked interspecific differences in support preference and strata use.