164 Records of the S.A. Museum 



mediate substance," mcntinned Ijy Turner ('"), refers to the structure here 

 inch'cated. 



Tongue Bones. — The basihyoid is a massive bone measuring 1 -65 m. 

 across. It is illustrated on Plate xxiv, together with the stylohyoids, the 

 connecting ceratohyoids being represented by cartilage only. 



Ribs. — Of the New Zealand whale I wrote : "Zoologists differ as to the 

 number of ribs possessed by the blue whale, some giving fifteen and others 

 sixteen pairs. While the Okarito whale has the lower number, it is significant 

 that the sixteenth (dorsal) vertebra has an articular surface, so that did we 

 not know that all the ribs were secured and preserved we should, by examina- 

 tion of the vertebrae, pronounce the number to be sixteen pairs." 



The South Australian whale likewise has fifteen pairs of ribs ; the series 

 of the left side is here illustrated (PI. xxiv, fig. 1). It is generally stated that 

 in some whales the first nh is formed of two components, each of which has a 

 separate head, one being attached to the first dorsal and the other to the last 

 cervical vertebrae. The anterior rib of the specimen under notice has a single 

 head only, but it possesses two articular surfaces which respectively conjoin 

 with the transverse processes of the contiguous cervical and dorsal vertebrae 

 The next three ribs have large capitular processes, as shown in the photo- 

 graph. In a S])ecimen described by Fk)\\er ( " • the processes were fully 

 developed only on the second and third ribs ; he remarked that the capitular 

 processes extended towards the bodies of the vertebrae. 



In this connection attention may be drawn to the very pertinent remarks 

 of I'^schricht, as detailed by Giebel and Leche ('->, who write, in ett^ect : "In 

 contradistinction to the statements given in most anatomical text-books, as 

 founded upon wrongly mounted skeletons, the heads of the ribs do not 

 articulate with the bodies of the vertebrae, but with the ends of the transverse 

 processes only, a conclusion arrived at from a study of the attachments of the 

 ligaments." This statement is probably true only of the baleen whales ; in 

 the Odontoceti some of the anterior ribs do form a connection with the 

 bodies of the vertebrae, and are likewise connected with more than one element 

 ot the sternum, which in the Mystacoceti consists of a single bone only. 



The length of each of the fifteen ribs, measured in a straight line between 

 their extreme points, is as follows : 



(10) Turner, Marine Mammals in Anat. Mus. Edin., 1912, p. 44 



(11) Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1864, p. 412. 



(12) Giebel and Leche, Bronn's Thier-reiclis. i, 1S74, p. 372. 



