General guide to the exhibition halls of the American Museum of Natural History (1911) (14593937447)

Identifier: generalguide45amer (find matches)
Title: General guide to the exhibition halls of the American Museum of Natural History
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History Sherwood, George Herbert, 1876-1937 Lucas, Frederic A. (Frederic Augustus), 1852-1929 Miner, Roy Waldo, 1875-1955
Subjects: American Museum of Natural History Natural history museums
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: IMLS / LSTA / METRO



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stage. There are fivedigits on each of the hands and feet. The Fourth Stage represents the primitivereptilian or lizard-like stage, from the LowerPermian of Texas. The skeleton on the wholeis not greatly different from the precedingstage (except in detail) but the limbs werebetter developed. The Fifth Stage represents an advancedmammal-like reptile (Cynognathus) fromthe Upper Triassic of South Africa. In this form the limbs were better adapted for run-ning, and there are many features of the skull,backbone, and limbs that approach those ofmammals. For the Sixth Stage the skeleton of amodern opossum was used. It retains in themain the leading characters of the skeletonsof the older fossil mammals. This form hasfive-toed grasping hands and feet, by meansof which it climbs about in the trees. It hasretained a relatively low type of skull, teeth,and brains. In the Seventh Stage we come to Notharc-tus, a form that lies near the lower limits ofthe order of Primates. These animals were (123)
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Stage 9Chimpanzee and Gorilla Stage 10.Man THE TWO FIXAL STAGES FROM FISH TO MAX. (On the ground again, and attainment of erect posture) thoroughly adapted to life in the trees butthev had much larger eyes and bigger brainsthan any of the preceding stages. The Eighth Stage is represented by theskeleton of the gibbon, an East Asiatic apewhich is a tree-living descendant of the firstfamily of the tail-less or man-like apes. Whenon the ground he is the only existing man-apewhich normally walks on his hind legs. Hisskeleton begins to be almost human in manyways but his arms are excessively long. The Ninth Stage is represented by ourdistant cousins the gorilla (below) and thechimpanzee (above). These apes retain theessential characters of the fossil apes of India and South Africa, some of which in turrapproached quite near to the oldest knowrfossil men. The ape brain is much more developcd than the brains of lower animalsand ape intelligence at times is almost humanIn the Tenth Stage we se