A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2)Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Science
A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2)
Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg)
Primates
The cranial region is comparatively small. The supra-orbital ridges, in
which the eye-brows are set, form, from their prominence, a marked feature
of the face. They overhang the eyes, causing them to appear very much sunk
in the skull. The neck is short, the chest and shoulders wide, thickly
haired and suggestive of great strength.
The arms are much longer than the fore-arms, and the feet, which have no
in-step, exceed the hands in length, and are much broader than in other
genera of the _Simiidæ_. The heel, which in the Orangs is small, is in the
Gorilla strongly developed, on which account it can easily stand erect. Its
opposable great-toe is large and flattened, and has a wide nail; while the
lower joints of the second, third, and fourth toes--which are also short
and thick--are united by a web. The arms, on which the hair converges on
both sides of the joint towards the elbow, are so long as to reach down to
the middle {182}of the leg when the Gorilla stands erect. The thumb is
short and thick, and is tipped with a broad nail. The hand is broad,
thickly haired on the back, and wrinkled from the wrist to the fingers. The
fur of the Gorilla consists of long, thick, straight, or stiffly curved
bristles, beneath which is a shorter curled woolly hair, or under-fur.
The skull of the adult male has very protruding jaws, and enormous
supra-orbital ridges. The cheek-bones are broad; the temporal muscles meet
along the top of the cranium, and have enormous bony crests for their
attachment. The same is the case on the back of the head for the powerful
neck-muscles. The true form of the skull is obscured by these great ridges
and by the extent to which the face protrudes. The brain-case is better
shaped internally than appears externally. The orbits have the same form as
in Man.
The canine teeth are enormously developed. The upper molars are
four-cusped, and have the oblique ridge, already often referred to, from
the front inner to the hind outer cusp, the posterior of the three being
much larger than the other two, a character distinguishing its jaw from
that of Man and the Chimpanzees. The anterior lower molars have five cusps,
three on the outer side and two on the inner, as in Man.
The lower jaw has no true chin, and its symphysis is very long and quite
different from what is seen in the human symphysis. The opening for the
passage of the spinal cord is situated in the posterior third of the base
of the skull, and not, as in Man, nearly in the centre.
The vertebræ of the neck, back, and loins number the same--seventeen--as in
Man; but there are thirteen parts of ribs instead of twelve. The
neck-vertebræ have long spines which contribute to the thickness of the
neck. The curvature, characteristic of {183}Man, in the lumbar region of
the vertebral column of the young Gorilla, is more developed than in the
Chimpanzee, and in both are earlier developed than in Man. (_Symington._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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