A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 1 (of 2)Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Science
A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 1 (of 2)
Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Primates
In the skull the facial region is relatively small, and the cranial region
relatively large. The external nostrils communicate with a cavity on the
underlying bone; the pre-maxillary bones are deeply excavated in front, and
the anterior perforations in the bony palate, behind the incisor teeth, are
large. The lower jaw has its angle large, produced backwards, the line of
union of its two halves being long, and its lateral movements very limited.
In regard to their dentition, the number of the milk-teeth in the young
individual is greater than that of the permanent set in the adult, the
formula of the former being I2/2, C1/1, P2/3 [M3/3], while that of the
latter is I2/2, C1/0, P2/2, M3/3, the lower canine and one lower pre-molar
having disappeared. In the upper jaw the incisors are very small, the outer
one standing behind the inner one, with a space between the former and the
canine; the canines are long, curved behind, and set close up to the
anterior pre-molar. The pre-molars are longer than they are broad,
laterally compressed, and present to the outside one main triangular cusp
with a small accessory cusp on each {92}side, the posterior tooth of the
series having a hind inner cusp. The anterior and median molars are
four-cusped, of which the outer and inner pairs are separated by a
longitudinal groove; to the outside they have one supernumerary cusp on
each main cusp, and one between them. The median molar is the largest tooth
of the jaw, and the posterior is small, triangular and three-cusped. Of the
lower jaw, the outer pair of the long, and almost horizontally protruding
incisors, is larger than the inner pair, and is separated by a space from
the anterior pre-molar. Of the elongate laterally compressed pre-molars,
the anterior is the larger, and is vertically taller than its fellows,
being slightly depressed forward and curved behind; the posterior pre-molar
has one cusp. The molars have four cusps, of which the inner ones alternate
with the outer cusps.
The intestinal canal in the _Indrisinæ_ is very long, the cæcum, or blind
diverticulum at the junction of its two portions, being extremely long and
large, occupying, indeed, a great part of the abdominal cavity. The main
arteries of the fore- and hind-limbs do not break up into a _rete
mirabile_, or series of small parallel vessels, as in many other Lemuroids.
In this group, while the sense of smell is very perfect, that of hearing is
less acute than in the other Sub-families; and that of touch conspicuously
blunt, both in the fingers and toes, which are chiefly climbing and not
tactile and prehensile organs, as they are in the corresponding limbs of
the Anthropoids. The female never produces more than one young at a birth.
The convolutions of the brain are few, but they are more complicated than
in many of the South American Monkeys. In very young individuals the
cerebellum is more covered by the cerebrum than it is in the adult.
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