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Background  In addition to external bone shape and cortical bone thickness and distribution, the distribution and orientation of internal trabecular bone across individuals and species has yielded important functional information on how bone adapts in response to load. In particular, trabecular bone analysis has played a key role in studies of human and nonhuman primate locomotion and has shown that species with different locomotor repertoires display distinct trabecular architecture in various regions of the skeleton. In this study, we analyse trabecular structure throughout the distal femur of extant hominoids and test for differences due to locomotor loading regime.    Methods  Micro-computed tomography scans of  Homo sapiens  ( n  = 11),  Pan troglodytes  ( n  = 18),  Gorilla gorilla  ( n  = 14) and  Pongo  sp. ( n  = 7) were used to investigate trabecular structure throughout the distal epiphysis of the femur. We predicted that bone volume fraction (BV/TV) in the medial and lateral condyles in  Homo  would be distally concentrated and more anisotropic due to a habitual extended knee posture at the point of peak ground reaction force during bipedal locomotion, whereas great apes would show more posteriorly concentrated BV/TV and greater isotropy due to a flexed knee posture and more variable hindlimb use during locomotion.    Results  Results indicate some significant differences between taxa, with the most prominent being higher BV/TV in the posterosuperior region of the condyles in  Pan  and higher BV/TV and anisotropy in the posteroinferior region in  Homo . Furthermore, trabecular number, spacing and thickness differ significantly, mainly separating  Gorilla  from the other apes.    Discussion  The trabecular architecture of the distal femur holds a functional signal linked to habitual behaviour; however, there was more similarity across taxa and greater intraspecific variability than expected. Specifically, there was a large degree of overlap in trabecular structure across the sample, and  Homo  was not as distinct as predicted. Nonetheless, this study offers a comparative sample of trabecular structure in the hominoid distal femur and can contribute to future studies of locomotion in extinct taxa.

Trabecular bone patterning in the hominoid distal femur