Abstract: The purpose of this research was to understand sex differences in the five metacarpals of adult Macaca mulatta from the Taihang mountains. Nine osteometric measurements were taken from 40 adult skeletons (10 males and 30 females) and were analyzed using discriminant function analysis from SPSS (Version 19 for Windows). Results showed that metric traits of the five metacarpals were good indicators of sexual dimorphism with accuracy ranging from 94.1-100% (Enter Independents Together method) and 93.8-97.5% (Stepwise). For all nine measurements, maximum length of metacarpal was the first variable selected in the stepwise analysis, which indicates that this variable played an important role in sex determination. It was, however, difficult to determine sex differences between left and right sides. This paper demonstrates that the sex of Macaca mulutta can be identified from metacarpal morphology using discriminant function equations, and this technique can be applied to other non-human primates.

Key words: Macaca mulatta; Metacarpal; Sex dimorphism; Discriminatory analysis