604 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



OUR POSSIBLE LEMUROID ANCESTOR. 



In the January Review we re-published from the Philadelphia Times, under 

 the title " The Missing Link," a reporter's statements respecting the recently- 

 found lemur Anatomorphus Homunculus , from the Wasatch beds of the Big Horn. 

 Naturally these statements were somewhat loosely made, and we gladly copy from 

 the American Naturalist, for January, Professor Cope's own description. — [Ed. 

 Review : 



An Anthropomorphous Lemur. — The stock from which the true quadru- 

 mana have been derived, is supposed to have been the lemurs, but no type of 

 that sub-order has hitherto been found which presents any near resemblance to 

 either of the four families of monkeys. The two inferior families Cebidce and 

 HapllidcB, agree with most of the Leniuridce. in having three premolar teeth, but 

 those of the upper jaw generally have well developed internal lobes like the true 

 molars while most of those of the Lemurs have none. One group of Lemurs, 

 the IndrisificB, agree with the higher monkeys in having but two premolars, but 

 these also are only one-lobed. 



A nearly perfect cranium of a species of Anaptomorphus Cope, shows that this 

 genus had but two premolars in the superior series, as in the Indrisince, but that 

 they are two-lobed, as in the Simiidce and Hominidce. Of these two families, the 

 Hominidce is the one to which Anaptomorphus makes the nearest approach in 

 dental characters. The canine is small with a crown little longer than those of 

 the premolars, and is not separated from the latter or from the incisors by any 

 appreciable diastema. All but one of the superior incisors are lost from the spec- 

 imen but those of the lower jaw, which I discovered in 1872, were nearly erect 

 as in man and the Simiidce, and not procumbent as in most Lemurs. The cere- 

 bral hemispheres are remarkably large for an Eocene mammal, extending to be- 

 tween the middles of the orbits'; the anterior parts, at least, are smooth. The 

 cerebellum projected beyond the foramen magnum posteriorly, as in Tarsius. 

 The orbits are large, approaching those of Tarsius, but are not so much walled in 

 by a septum from the temporal fossa as in that genus. The superior molars have 

 only one internal cusp. 



The species, which I propose to call Anaptomorphus homunculus, has a wide 

 palate much as in a man, and the true molar teeth diminish in size posteriorly. 

 The pterygoid and zygomatic foss» are short and wide, and the petrous bone is 

 large and inflated. The animal was nocturnal in its habits and was the size of a 

 marmoset. The genus is nearer the hypothetical lemuroid ancestor of man than 

 any yet discovered. — E. D. Cope. 



