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IX. On the Anatomy of the Great ^n<ea<er (Myrmecophaga jubata, Linn.). 

 By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.Z.S. &;c. 



Read July 25, 1854. 



-L HE energetic administration of the Zoological Society of London, besides adding to 

 the means of instruction and instructive recreation for the millions who reside in or 

 visit the metropolis, is not less operative in advancing the purely scientific aims of the 

 Fellows of the Society. 



Already the ' Transactions ' and other publications of the Society contain the records 

 of the organization of many rare animals, unknown, at least anatomically, before their 

 exhibition in the Menagerie in the Regent's Park ; and in addition to former Mono- 

 graphs, including those on the Giraffe, Phacochere, Walrus, and Rhinoceros, I have 

 now the good fortune to be able to communicate the commencement of one on the 

 Great Anteater of South America. 



The subject of the present description was a full-grown female animal which was 

 received at the Gardens in the Regent's Park, September 29, 1853, and there died, 

 July 6, 1854. Contemporary notices of the peculiarities of its external form, modes of 

 motion, particularly of its large, vertically fan-shaped, long-fringed tail, when the 

 animal, coiled up for repose, covered itself with that portable blanket, preclude the 

 necessity of premising much on these subjects ; for information on which I may refer 

 more particularly to the 'Literary Gazette,' No. 1916, for October 8, 1853, to Mr. 

 Broderip's most interesting Paper in the No. of ' Eraser's Magazine ' for February 

 1844, and to the excellent articles in the ' Household Words,' and the periodical 

 entitled 'Excelsior.' 



The weight of the entire animal at the time of its death was 62 lbs. avoirdupois. 

 [Since communicating an account of the anatomy of this animal to the Scientific 

 Meeting of the Zoological Society, July 25, 1854, a male Anteater of the same species 

 {Myrmecophaga jubata), not quite fully grown, has also been examined by me, and the 

 present memoir combines the results of both dissections.] 



External Peculiarities and Dermal Muscles. 



The following remarks on some external peculiarities, as observed in the recent 

 animal, seemed to be worthy of recording. 



The length of the naked sole of the fore foot, from the base of the middle claw to the 

 back part of the carpal pad, is five inches. The distal half of the ungual phalanx of the 

 first toe, or ' pollex,' projects from the common cutaneous sheath of the toes ; it supports 

 a slender curved claw one inch three lines long by three lines in greatest breadth. The 

 end of the second phalanx, with the ungual phalanx of the second toe, ' index,' projects 

 freely : the length of the exposed part of the claw is three inches, its basal diameter six 



