610 A new Genus for Dactylopsila palpator. 



matic breadtli 146 ; breadth of brain-case 13; palatilar 

 length 12*8; palatal foramina 5'3 ; upper molar series 4'2. 



Hah. South Queensland. 



Type. Adult male in spirit. B.M. no. 92. 8. 7. 2. Pre- 

 sented by the Brisbane Museum. A second specimen, with- 

 out exact locality, in skin. 



This is evidently an eastern representative of the beautiful 

 little West Australian Ps. albocinereus, with which it shares 

 the general characters and blue-grey colour, but from which 

 it may be readily distinguished by its much greater size. 



LXVI. — A new Genus for Dactylopsila palpator. 

 By Oldfield Thomas. 



(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



The British Museum owes to Mr. Walter Goodfellow a skin 

 with skull of the remarkable marsupial described by Milne- 

 Edwards as Dactylopsila palpator*, and a careful study of 

 it leads me to think it should be separated generically from 

 true Dactylopsila. 



Dactylonax, gen. nov. 



Type. Dactylonax palpator (Dactylopsila palpator, M.-Edw.). 



General characters as in Dactylopsila, but fourth finger 

 much lengthened, very slender, its claw much smaller than 

 those of the other digits. 



Skull more bowed and more heavily built than in Dactylo- 

 psila ; muzzle shorter, the zygomata more boldly expanded ; 

 posterior nares narrower. 



Anterior incisors, both above and below, very much 

 stouter and heavier. Molars more disproportionate in size, 

 the anterior larger and the posterior smaller than in the allied 

 form ; last upper molar with three cusps only. 



This animal has become specialized in a closely similar 

 way to what has taken place in the Aye-Aye (Daubentonia), 

 a single finger lengthened and made slender (presumably 

 for searching for grubs in wood), combined with powerful 

 rodent-like incisors for gnawing the gvubs out when found. 

 The ends of the upper incisors in Dactylonax are worn off 

 abruptly at the end by friction, not with the lower incisors, 

 which touch them in quite a different part, but with some 

 outside objects, such as tree trunks or boughs. 



* Mem. Cent. Soc. Philoni. p. 173 (1888). 



