PSEUDORCA CRASSIDENS. 
205 
Kiel specimen, ten dorsal vertebrae may certainly be considered to be the normal number in this 
species, which, accordingly in this manner, will be provided with seven cervical, ten dorsal, ten 
lumbar, and lastly, twenty-three caudal vertebrae. In consequence of this comparatively small 
number of the vertebrae, the single vertebrae, especially in the hindmost part of the dorsal region, 
in the lumbar region, and the greater part of the tail, are more extended in length than in the 
ca’ing-whales and the killers, and as moreover the spinous processes are somewhat lower than is 
the case, not only w r ith the former, but also with the latter, the appearance of the spine, generally 
speaking, will be found to differ not a little from that of the spine of an Orca, and still 
more from that of the spine of a ca’ing-whale. It may further be inferred that our 
species is in this respect no less different from the Delphinus griseus also, both from 
the considerable difference between these two animals in the number of their vertebrae, and 
from Cuvier’s words about this species, first described by him: “ Les apophyses epineuses s’elevent 
beaucoup sur le commencement des lombes,” seeming also to denote that such is the case; but 
his description is so short, that we are not able from it alone to obtain an accurate idea of the 
peculiarities of the spine of this Belpldnus griseus) 
If we pass to the examination of the details of the vertebral column, and in the first place to 
that of the cervical vertebras, we shall find that the ankylosis of these is farther advanced than 
either in the killers, or in the ca’ing-whales. For though in old animals of the former species, the 
four or five, or in rare instances, perhaps, even the six foremost cervical vertebrae may be ankylosed 
by means of their spinous processes, 1 2 3 * yet it is only the two, or, at most, the three foremost 
of the vertebral bodies that are ankylosed; the rest of them always remain separate, and though 
the bodies of the six foremost cervical vertebrae may sometimes be ankylosed in the cafing-whalcs, 
yet both the sixth and the fifth may also, even in very large, and evidently very old individuals 
remain separate from each other, and from the preceding ones. But in the species of 
which we are now treating it is not only the six foremost, but in some individuals, even all seven 
cervical vertebrae that have their vertebral bodies ankylosed. Thus, the former is the case in the 
individual drifted ashore at Asnaes, the latter in the male stranded at Middelfart; it is true, that 
only the five foremost cervical veretebrae have their bodies ankylosed 8 in the individual found at 
Refsnaes; but this must most probably only be considered as a consequence of the greater youth 
of this individual; for the thin posterior epiphysis of the fifth cervical vertebra is not united 
with the middle piece of the vertebral body, and both the epiphyses of the sixth are still free; 
and it is certainly probable that, just as the anterior osseous disk of the fifth vertebral body is 
already perfectly united, not only with the middle piece of the body, but further with the body 
1 f Rech. s. 1., Oss. Foss.,’ 4me ed., tom. 8, 2, page 147. 
2 Of the cervical vertebrae of an Orca from the Skagerak preserved in the Royal Museum, the 
four foremost are perfectly ankylosed by means of their spines; the spine of the fifth cervical vertebra 
is, indeed, perfectly separated from these ankylosed spines of the preceding vertebrae, but, on the other 
hand, it is again ankylosed to the spine of the sixth cervical vertebra, and it is placed so closely up to 
the fourth one, and the irregularities in the contiguous surfaces fit so exactly together, that the thought 
strikes us quite naturally that these, too, are going to be ankylosed, and that if the animal had grown 
somewhat older, all the six foremost cervical vertebrae would have been united by their spinous 
processes, while only the three foremost are ankylosed also by their bodies. 
3 The same was the case with the individual on which Owen founded his Phocana crassidem, 
but we are not informed whether this was a young animal or not. 
