The divisions which I am about to describe occur, one in each
parietal, in the skull of a nine-year-old male chimpanzee, which was
captured, when young, in West Africa. Later on he was one of the
attractions of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and was familiarly known
as Chico. The chimpanzee died in 1894, since when his skin and bones
have been preserved in the American Museum of Natural History, New
York City. Prof. J. A. Allen, the curator of the Zoölogical Department
of the Museum, has kindly given me permission to describe the skeletal
parts for publication.[3]
The most interesting part of Chico is unquestionably the skull. The
divisions of the parietal bones which the specimen presents are not
only the first complete divisions of the parietal observed in a
chimpanzee, but are also unique in character, no divisions of the same
nature having been observed before, either in man, in apes, or in
monkeys. The position and extent of the divisions in this skull will
throw considerable light on the question of the aberrant, complete
divisions of the parietal bone, by which term may be designated
divisions differing from the typical horizontal ones.
The skull under consideration shows in general a good development and
an almost perfect symmetry. The capacity of the brain cavity, measured
according to Flower's method, is 390 c.c.
The masculine features of this skull, and particularly the temporal
ridges, are not quite as marked as those of another skull of an
adolescent male chimpanzee in the Museum. The temporal ridges are
slightly prominent, and in their middle third, over part of the frontal
and the parietal bones, not more pronounced than in some human crania.
They are, however, situated very high. Their upper lines or boundaries
touch each other over a part of the sagittal suture, a little back of
the bregma; while the lower lines approach to within 6 mm. of the
sagittal suture. The supraorbital ridges are not very massive, although
prominent to such a degree that, when the skull rests on the occipital
condyles and on the teeth, the plane of the orbits is almost vertical.
The sagittal crest is insignificant; the occipital crest is high, but
not very massive. The zygomatic arches are less strong than they are in
an average white male; and the mastoids are small, even smaller than in
an average adult white female.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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