iiALUoui.iisKi.vji. J23 



Sixbfamily IT. MACROGLOSSINiE, 



Differential characters. ^HimUar to Pteropodinm^ but tongue 

 highl}' extensible and with well-developed unfringed filitoriu 

 pupil l;i3 at tip. 



Range.— The Indo-Chinese, ludo-Malayan, and Austi'o-M:ilayan 

 subrej^ions, extending a little beyond the latter, south toQueensland, 

 east to New Caledonia and Fiji Islands ; one genus in West Africa. 



Characters of tongue of Pteropodinae (figs. 65 A-H). — The tongue 

 of Pteropns is here taken as a paradigm for a description of the 

 shape and surface structure of this organ in the subfamily Ptero- 

 jwdincT, not because it is the most primitive in characters, but 

 because it is conveniently large and exhibits the different forms of 

 papillae perfectly well-dift'erentiated. In Pt. pscphalon (fig. 65 B^) 

 the tongue measures about 46 mm. in length (nine-tenths of the 

 length of the mandible) from the base of the epiglottis ; its breadth 

 at base is 16 mm., and from this point it becomes gradually narrower 

 until, about six mm. from the tip, it measures 8 mm. in breadth ; 

 for its terminal six mm. it more rapidly tapers to a point. The 

 posterior half is fixed to the floor of the mouth, thick (vertically), 

 and with its dorsal surface conspicuously convex from side to side; 

 the anterior free half much thinner, flat or even distinctly concave 

 above. The whole of the dorsal surface of the tongue as well as the 

 upper lateral borders of its anterior half are covered with closel}- 

 ])acked ])apill8e, the ventral surface perfectly smooth. The papilli© 

 may be described under two h( adings, tactual and gustatorf/ : — 



(I) Tactual papillss. — In their simplest form (he tactual papillas 

 take the shape of rounded orsubconical eminences from the mucous 

 membrane. Papilhe of this form cover, in Pt. pscphalon, the lateral 

 tracts of the dorsal surface of the anterior half of the tongue, but 

 not its median area nor the extreme tip. On a cursory inspection 

 this coat of so-called conical * papillce (co.) looks like a regularly 

 arranged pavement, in reality each papilla is directed obliquely 

 backward ; its longitudinal axis is only slightly, or not at all, 

 grer»ter than its transverse diameter, its upper (in the position of the 

 papilla, posterior) and lateral borders finely fringed (the fringes as a 

 rule diflScult to detect by the naked eye) {€'). — Toward the tip of 

 the tongue these papilhe become gradually more elongate (conical), 

 until at the extreme tip of the organ they have developed into long 



* This is the name of these papillce suggested by Bobin in liis brief sketch 

 of tbe eurlace structure of the tongue of Cbirojitera lAnn. feci. Nat. ((>) Zool. 

 xii. Art. 2. p. 17, 1881, no figures). It must be observed, Lowever. that only 

 in the tr.iiisitionwl regions bi-tweeii tlie "conical" and filiCorni areas of the 

 tongue do tliese papillae assume a really conical shape ; in their typical form 

 they are rounded or slightly elongate eminences, dietinctly flattened antero- 

 posteriurly, not infrequently conspicuously concave on tlie anterior (dorsal) 

 surface, and with the upper {iu the posiliun of the piipillie, posterior) border 

 broadly ruuudod yti". 



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