TESTING HOMINOID PHYLOGENY WITH THE PHYLIP PROGRAMS

Computer assisted cladistic analyses were undertaken in order to: (1) test the utility of the PHYLIP program and (2) try to resolve the problem of hominoid phylogeny as approached from comparative morphology. Computer programs are of great assistance, as long as some idea of ancestral states is possible; but different parsimony assumptions are about equally plausible. But there is no substitute for careful selection of characters; depending on different methods of selection, aPan-Homo clade and aPan-Gorilla clade can both be supported. © 1991 Academic Press Limited.