The Philippine Journal of Science. 



D. General Biology, Ethnologj' and Anthropology. 



Vol. vl, No. 3, June, 1911. 



THE SKELETON IN THE FLYING LEMURS, GALEOPTERID/E. 



By R. W. Shufeldt. 

 (Washington, D. C.) 



INTRODUCTION. 



Osteological matei-ial for the i^resent contribution has been furnished 

 by Professor J. B. Steere of Ann Arbor, Micliigan, and by Mr. Eichard 

 C. McGregor, of the Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I. Wliat this material 

 consists of, together with letters and other notes accompanying it, will 

 be set forth further on in the present introduction. 



A number of comparative anatomists have touched upon the morphology 

 of probably several of the species of the flying lemurs, but until the 

 present time it appears that no fully illustrated and detailed account of 

 the osteology of these remarkable animals has been published. 



Owen,^ in giving the characters of the skeleton of the Insectivora, 

 briefly refers to the skull and some few of the limb bones of Gahoplthecits, 

 but in the case of the skull, unfortunately, he does not make it sufSciently 

 clear as to whether the description does not likewise apply to Pteropus. 

 Thus he says : 



This [that is the skull] in Pteropus and Galeopithecus manifests the lissen- 

 cephaloiis afiinity by the squamosal being perforated by a venous canal behind 

 the root of the zygoma, by the suspension of the malar, in the zygoma, by the 

 distinct petrotympanic, by the vertical occiput, small cranial cavity, and blended 

 orbital and temporal fossae. The orbit is partly defined behind by long and 

 slender processes of the frontal, which is perforated by a superciliary foramen. 

 The parietals usually coalesce at the sagittal suture, but rarely develop a crest. 



The paragraph continues in confused and inaccurate generalities to 

 the end and closes with the statement that "in Galeopithecus the coronoid 

 is small." Little more than this is added to his description of the 

 skeleton, in fact only that 



In the Colugo (Galeopithecus) the ulna terminates in a point at the lower 

 ■Anatomy of Vertebrates (1866), 2, 387, 388. 



