News and Views The bony labyrinth of Oreopithecus bambolii

developed a number of homininlike adaptations(homoplasies), together with peculiar cranial anddental morphological characteristics that havebeen considered similar to the ancestral catarrhine,cercopithecoid, or hominid conditions (Hu¨rzeler,1958, 1968; Simons, 1960; Delson, 1979; Szalayand Delson, 1979; Ko¨hler and Moya´ Sola´, 1997;Moya´ Sola´ et al., 1999a; Rook et al., 1999; Albaet al., 2001b). Most of the