HISTORY OF THE PRIMATES 



581 



the result of its most weird appearance." ^ The skull is 

 more anthropoid in character than is that of any other 

 lemur, the face being greatly shortened, the cranium en- 

 larged and the orbit not merely encircled in a bony rim, 

 but with a thin posterior wall of bone. There are also struc- 

 tural features in the soft parts, which are more anthropoid 

 than lemuroid. 



The particular interest which Tarsius possesses for the stu- 

 dent of American mammals is its resemblance to the Wasatch 

 genus -\Anaptoi7iorphus, the type of a family which was abun- 

 dant and varied in the lower 

 and middle Eocene. This 

 genus was remarkably ad- 

 vanced in view of its great 

 antiquity. The dental for- 

 mula was: if, c\, Ps--2, 

 m|, X 2 = 34-36 ; in the 

 upper jaw the premolars 

 were bicuspid and the 

 molars tritubercular, while 

 the lower premolars were 

 simple. The face was very 

 much shortened ; the orbits 

 were very large and encircled in bone, but without the pos- 

 terior wall. This produces a decided likeness to the Tarsier 

 and is no doubt indicative of nocturnal habits. The cranium 

 was remarkably large, and no other Wasatch animal had a 

 brain-case so capacious in proportion to its size. A lemurine 

 character was the position of the lachrymal foramen outside 

 of the orbit. The two halves of the lower jaw were separate. 

 It is hardly likely that these American lemurs were the actual 

 ancestors of the anthropoids, but they closely represent what 

 those ancestors must have been. 



1 F. E. Beddard, Mammals, London, 1902, pp. 550, 551. 



Fig. 285. — Head of monkey-like lemur (t-^w- 

 aptomorphus homunculus) from the Wasatch. 

 Re.stored from a skull in the American 

 Museum. 



