The pedigree of the human race / by Harris Hawthorne Wilder.

  • Harris Hawthorne Wilder
Date:
[1926?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The pedigree of the human race / by Harris Hawthorne Wilder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Fig. 3. Skull of Hylobates leuciscus, an anthropoid, showing a complete partition separating the temporal and orbital fossae. suggested also in other ways, that the early forms were nocturnal, as is still the habit of the lemurs; that the nocturnal habit necessitated the development of large eyes; and that the completion of the orbit became necessary in order to strengthen the supporting parts. As these early anthropoids were small forms, like Tarsius, the eyes became propor- tionately so large, that they encroached on the nasal cavities, and reduced the sense of smell, while the huge cup-shaped orbits, forming bony eye capsules, projected from the rest of the face, especially above and laterally, and produced the pronounced superciliary ridges and lateral wings, so characteristic of many of the present day anthropoids (e. g., the gibbons). None of the other char- acters given are as positive in the way of diagnosis as this first one. Thus, in the matter of the distribution of claws and nails, while the possession of a single claw on each hind foot is a constant peculiarity of the lemurs, and in a general way may be considered to mark a lower stage of development than one in which all the claws have been converted into
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