<+> Fauna : Mammals 



fingers as do the modern galagos. In time these leaps 

 would be sustained by the beating of the air with the 

 webbed fingers, while the loose skin of the body acted as a 

 parachute, and so by degrees the wings and flight of the 

 modern bats were evolved. 



The teeth of the Galagos resemble those of the true 

 Lemurs in number and form, but the lower incisors are perhaps 

 not quite so procumbent (horizontal in setting), at any rate 

 in three of the species of which Galago demidoffi is one. This 

 last is the only galago which has, as yet, been recorded 

 from Liberia. 



A peculiarity of the Lemurs, distinguishing them sharply 

 from the true monkeys and the remote ancestors of man, is 

 the incisiform character of the lower canine teeth, which indeed 

 by Gray and earlier biologists were regarded as true incisors. 

 The tooth in the lower jaw which appears to be the canine 

 and corresponds with the upper canines, is really the first 

 premolar, and is an upright sharp tusk in shape ; but in Galago 

 demidoffi these dental peculiarities are not quite so strongly 

 marked as in most other lemurs. The procumbent lower canine 

 is a little more separated from the two incisors, and not quite so 

 horizontal, and the first lower premolar does not move so far 

 forward or assume so markedly the look of a lower canine tooth. 



An archaic feature in the Galagos shared by Galago 

 demidoffi is the presence of four mammas, one on each breast, 

 and the other pair between the thighs. This feature only 

 occurs elsewhere amongst the lemurs in the true lemurine 

 genus Hapalemur. In the Madagascar Aye-aye there are only 

 two teats, and these are placed on the abdomen. In all proba- 

 bility the parent anthropoid forms, from which originated the 

 Lemurs, Monkeys, and Man, retained two pairs of teats from 

 out of the three or four pairs of the more generalised mammalia. 



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