A Middle Miocene hominoid from Thailand and orangutan origins

The origin of orangutans has long been debated. Sivapithecus is considered to be the closest ancestor of orangutans because of its facial-palatal similarities, but its dental characteristics and postcranial skeleton do not confirm this phylogenetic position. Here we report a new Middle Miocene hominoid, cf. Lufengpithecus chiangmuanensis n. sp. from northern Thailand. Its dental morphology relates it to the Pongo clade, which includes Lufengpithecus, Sivapithecus, Gigantopithecus, Ankarapithecus and possibly Griphopithecus. Our new species displays striking dental resemblances with living orangutans and appears as a more likely candidate to represent an ancestor of this ape. In addition, it originates from the geographic area of Pleistocene orangutans. But surprisingly, the associated flora shows strong African affinities, demonstrating the existence of a temporary floral and faunal dispersal corridor between southeast Asia and Africa during the Middle Miocene, which may have played a critical role in hominoid dispersion.     

The Predictive Performance Evaluation of Biased Regression Predictors With Correlated Errors

When the interdependence of disturbances is present in a regression model, the pattern of sample residuals contains information which is useful in the prediction of post‐sample drawings and when multicollinearity among regressors is also present, it is useful to use biased regression estimators. This information is exploited in the biased predictors derived here. Also, the predictive performance of various biased predictors with correlated errors is discussed and all pair‐wise comparisons are made among these predictors. The theoretical results are illustrated by a numerical example. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.