The Anatomical Record Marches on by Exploring Evolution in the Second Part of Our Special Issue on the Human Pelvis

How fitting that this Editorial is penned (will anyone even know what this means in twenty years? ) on February 12. That day is special for so many, particularly those who seek to understand our biological world, as it was on this day in 1809 that Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England. Darwin is, of course, the name that has become most associated with ideas of species change through processes of natural selection, what is now generally referred to as evolution. While Charles Darwin was not the first to advance the ideas that a species could change—often referred to as “transmutation of species” by those before him—he did articulate a process and empower it with that handy compendium of facts (real, not alternative, that is) known as “data” to accompany his ideas. While the exact processes and mechanisms of evolution remain topics of study, the general concept that species have temporally changed has been repeatedly, and robustly, demonstrated scientifically. Whether it is through the geologic and paleontologic record, or the almost-daily insights from genetics and genomics, documentation of evolution has been copiously documented in nature for all whose eyes are sufficiently open to see. Evolution is the foundation upon which those of us who seek to comprehend the narrative of vertebrate anatomy, and its inherent function, is built. With the above as prelude, The Anatomical Record has been a fertile and creative home for studies that explore the natural past and/or test hypotheses on evolutionary mechanisms that have effectuated extant vertebrate morphology. Indeed, nary an issue of our journal sees the press that does not contain such, and we have featured many Special Issues on evolutionary topics, such as those on: “The Evolution of Primate Special Senses” (Dominy et al., 2004; Laitman, 2004); “Anatomical Adaptations of Aquatic Mammals” (Laitman, 2007; Reidenberg, 2007); “Unearthing the Anatomy of Dinosaurs” (Dodson, 2009; Laitman, 2009); “Evolutionary and Functional Morphology of New World Primates” (Laitman, 2011; Rosenberger, 2011); “The Vertebrate Nose: Evolution, Structure and Function” (Laitman, 2014; Van Valkenburgh et al., 2014); “Understanding the Zygoma: A Key Morphological Partition in the Craniofacial Skeleton, Evolution” (Dechow and Wang, 2017; Laitman, 2017.) Indeed, our cup runneth over! It is with great pride that we now continue our Special Issue on “The Human Pelvis,” Guest Edited by Karen Rosenberg of the University of Delaware and Jeremy DeSilva of Dartmouth College. The first part, focusing on “Anatomy, Function, and Development” appeared last month in our April, 2017 issue (DeSilva and Rosenberg, 2017.) This month, our intrepid duo built upon the cutting edge science and reviews in the first issue, now probing both back in time and through comparative studies with their second act, lifting up the curtain on the “Evolution” of this extraordinary region (Rosenberg and DeSilva, 2017.) Again, our Anatomical Record archives are rich with many fine studies that have explored aspects of functional pelvic morphology. While our prior Editorial to the first Special Issue on the Pelvis (Laitman and Albertine, 2017) reviewed many of our older contributions (indeed, going back to “horse-and-buggy” doctors and ancestors of Aaron Burr! ) this editorial offers some recent contributions that addressed, or provided, insights from comparative anatomy or paleontology that bear directly upon evolutionary questions. These include studies on a range of species that create a window into functional changes and evolutionary relationships, such as those by: Walthall and Ashley-Ross (2006) on the post-cranial myology of the California newt; Urben et al.’s (2014) study on the homology of pelvic elements of Zygaspis quadrifrons; the insightful, global observations on tetrapod forelimb and hindlimb homologies by Rui Diogo, one of the leading evolutionary-focused anatomists of our day (Diogo and Molinar, 2014); a comparative study of hip and thigh anatomy in leopards and domestic cats, and its implications for evolutionary changes by Carlon and Hubbard (2015); and a study by Toledo and colleagues (Toledo et al., 2015) on the reconstructions, and functional morphology, of the hindlimb region of Early Miocene sloths from Patagonia. THE ANATOMICAL RECORD 300:783–785 (2017)