The Vertebrate SkeletonReynolds, Sidney H. (Sidney Hugh)
Science
The Vertebrate Skeleton
Reynolds, Sidney H. (Sidney Hugh)
Skeleton
palatines and pterygoids are moderately large, and the pterygoids have
a backwardly-projecting hamular process. The squamosal is small, but
has a postglenoid process. The tympanic is not fused to the periotic
and has a small bulla not filled with cancellous bone. There is a
large paroccipital process to the exoccipital and the mandible has a
long slender coronoid process.
In the Cervidae and Giraffidae the face is not bent down on the
basicranial axis as it is in the Bovidae. The frontals are drawn out,
not into permanent horn cores as in the Bovidae, but into short
outgrowths, the pedicels, upon which in the Cervidae long antlers are
annually developed. These _antlers_ are outgrowths of bone, and are
covered during development by vascular integument, which dries up and
peels off when growth is complete. Every year they are detached, by a
process of absorption at the base, and shed. They may occur in both
sexes, as in the Reindeer, but as a rule they are found only in the
male. They are generally more or less branched, and are sometimes of
enormous size and weight, as in the extinct _Cervus megaceros_. In
young animals they are always simple, but become annually more and
more complicated as the animal grows older.
In the Giraffe the frontals bear a small pair of bony cores, which are
at first distinct, but subsequently become fused to the skull. In the
allied _Sivatherium_, a very large form from the Indian Pliocene, the
skull bears two pairs of bony outgrowths, a pair of short conical
outgrowths above the orbits, and a pair of large expanded outgrowths
on the occiput.
The opening of the lachrymal canal is commonly double and the
lachrymal fossa is large in the Cervidae and the Giraffidae except
_Sivatherium_. The vacuity between the frontal, lachrymal, maxillae,
and nasal is specially large.
The hyoid of Ruminants is noticeable for the development of the
anterior cornua, which include stout and short cerato-hyals and
epi-hyals, long and strong stylo-hyals and large tympano-hyals which
are more or less imbedded in the tympanics.
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