ANALYSIS OF PEDOMORPHOSIS USING ALLOMETRIC CHARACTERS - THE EXAMPLE OF REDUNCINI ANTELOPES (BOVIDAE, MAMMALIA)

Two kinds of characters of reduncine antelopes were analyzed cladistic ally: (1) quantitative osteological characters treated allometrically to remove the effects of body weight and (2) discretely coded characte rs. Character congruence was tested by combined cladistic analysis of all the data. We analyzed reduncine ontogeny and addressed the general question of how cladistics can be used together with ontogenetic info rmation to study heterochrony. We tested whether characters of waterbu ck evolved by paedomorphosis within the genus Kobus or whether these c haracters are plesiomorphic retentions. The plesiomorphic hypothesis w as falsified and the paedomorphosis hypothesis was supported.