The "Mika" or "Kulpi" operation of the Australian aboriginals / by T.P. Anderson Stuart.

  • Anderson Stuart, Thomas Peter, 1856-1920.
Date:
[1896?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The "Mika" or "Kulpi" operation of the Australian aboriginals / by T.P. Anderson Stuart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    65- Dendrolagus, cannot regain the lost thumb, and are at most sHghtly modified Wallabies. All the known Rat-kangaroos— which are, there is little doubt, the more primitive members of the group*—are of small size, and their dentition is invariably suited to a fibrous vegetable diet, principally of grass. Though in Burvamys there are but three molars above, and the fourth below rudimentary, there can be no doubt that in closely related forms the normal number was present, and the changes which would be required to give rise to such a dentition as is met with in the Rat-kangaroos from a Burramys-like ancestor are very slight. The increased grinding work entailed by the tougher vegetable diet would lead to the retention and greater development of the four molars; and while the large cutting premolars would be also retained and modified slightly to suit the special require- ments, of the various species, the rudimentary premolars being functionless would become lost. In the further development of the MacropodidcB which gave rise to the Kangaroos and Wallabies a most interesting change has taken place. Owing to the increase in size of the forms and also to the loose mode of attachment of the jaws to each other, the cutting functions can all be performed by the incisors, and the large premolars which had been functional in the lower forms became much reduced in size, and in the larger species are of so little importance that they are lost shortly after the animal becomes adult without apparently causing any incon- venience. It will thus be seen that there are fairly good reasons for believing that the unusually large development of the last premolar has been brought about in connection with the more * The position of Tridii, De Vis, is uncertain. Lydekker says of it (Palaeontology by Nicholson & Lydekker, Vol. ii. p. 1286), there is a minute tooth behind the lower incisor corresponding to the tooth in the Phcdangeridm, commonly reckoned as the representative of the canine [2nd incisor—Thomas]. If this observation be correct it is certainly an interesting Phalangeroid character, but De Vis informs me that the dentition in the adult jaw is I^; 0°; P*; Mi- 2. a. 4,. jt ^.jn ^hus for the present be safer to omit consideration of this form.