Notes on a cetaceous animal stranded on the north-east coast of Ireland ; On the size of the red corpuscles of the blood of the great anteater (Myrmecophaga jubata) / by George Gulliver.

  • Gulliver, George, 1804-1882.
Date:
[1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on a cetaceous animal stranded on the north-east coast of Ireland ; On the size of the red corpuscles of the blood of the great anteater (Myrmecophaga jubata) / by George Gulliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the Great Anteater (Myrmecophaga jubata). c By George Gulliver, F.R.S. These have the usual form, but differ in their comparatively large size from those of most other Mammalia. Their average diameter is inVffth of an English inch, and varying between the extremes of 3-J^th and 2 ./g-g-th of an inch. All observers had come to the conclusion that there is no con- nection between the size of an animal and that of its blood-cor- puscles, when I ascertained that in any truly natural family there is really such connection, however it may be in animals of such dif- ferent orders as those to which the mouse and horse belong. The Great Anteater has larger blood-corpuscles than any yet examined in the other and smaller Edentata, though they are remarkably large in the Two-toed Sloth ; and the Capybara has the largest ever seen among the Rodentia. Indeed, as this last order is characterized by a comparatively large size of blood-coipuscle, it might be supposed that in the great extinct species the corpuscles were larger than any ever measured in the Mammalia; and if any gigantic species allied to the Anteater should be found, its red corpuscles may be expected to be alike remarkable for comparative magnitude. In the present species they are about the same size as in the Ele- phant, and certainly, excepting this great pachydermatous animal, the largest yet observed in the Mammalia; as may be seen by refe- rence to the copious Tables of Measurements which I have appended to the English version of Gerber’s Anatomy, and to my edition of Ilewson’s Works, published for the Sydenham Society. With the exception just mentioned, it is still a very interesting fact, that a simple examination of less than one hundredth of a grain of its dried blood would suffice to distinguish the Anteater from any other animal in the Society’s Menagerie.