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XLI.—The Skeleton of a Sowerby's Whale (Mesoplodon bidens) stranded at St Andrews, and the Morphology of the Manus in Mesoplodon, Hyperoodon and the Delphinidæ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2014

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Abstract

In May 1908 an adult female Sowerby's whale, Mesoplodon bidens, was stranded in St Andrews Bay, about a mile from the clubhouse. Its capture and external characters were recorded by Professor W. C. M‘Intosh in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, December 1908. The skeleton was obtained by him for the Gatty Marine Laboratory, and at his request I have examined and prepared this report on its characters.

Type
Proceedings
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1909

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References

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page 687 note † Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxvi. p. 759, 1872.Google Scholar

page 687 note ‡ Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol. xvi., April 1882; Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., Jan. 1882.

page 687 note § “The Anatomy of a Second Specimen of Sowerby's Whale,” Journal of Anat. And , Phys., vol.xx. p. 144, October 1885; Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xiii. p. 279.Google Scholar

page 687 note ║ Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., vol. x., 18881889.Google Scholar

page 687 note ¶ Annals of Scottish Natural History, October 1895, p. 250.

page 689 note * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 28th Feb. 1893.

page 689 note † See my account of the tympano-petrous bones in the Odontoceti, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol.xxiv. p. 423, 1903.Google Scholar

page 693 note * Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol. xx. p. 180.

page 696 note * Annals of Scottish Natural History, 1897, p. 42; and in a paper read at a meeting of Literary and Scientific Societies at Nairn, July 1898, p. 4.

page 697 note * The same Annals, p.66, April 1900. The skeleton of the mother and the skull of the yong animal are now in the Royol Scottish Museum.

page 697 note † Proc. Roy. Phys. soc. Edin., Vol. ix. p. 25, 18851886.Google Scholar

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page 697 note | Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, vol. xxii. p. 53, 1886.Google Scholar

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page 697 note ‡ American Naturalist, vol. xl. p. 357, 1906.Google Scholar

page 698 note * In the Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 18911892, vol. xix. p. 70, I have discussed the; morphology of the manus in the whalebone whale, Balœnoptera rostrata.Google Scholar

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page 699 note * Carpus and Tarsus, 1864.

page 700 note * Vergleich. Anat. Entwicklungsgeschichte untersuch. an Wahltieren, Jena, Erster Theil 1889, Zweiter Theil 1893; also in Denksch. der medic.-natur. wiss. Gesellsch. zu Jena, Dritter Band, 1889 and 1893.

page 700 note † Morphohgisches Jahrhuch, May 1888, Bd. xiii., Taf. xxvii. fig. 4, p. 626.

page 700 note ‡ Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., 1887, p. 346.

page 701 note * I am indebted to Mr Thos. Anderson of Hillswick for this specimen.

page 702 note * Morphologisches Jahrbuch, May 1888, Taf. xxvii. fig. 7.

page 702 note † Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxvi. p. 310.

page 707 note * Journ. Anat. and Phys., Oct. 1885, vol. xx. p. 185.

page 709 note * See my account in Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., vol. xi. p. 192, 1891-92; also my description of the Viscera in Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. xxvi. p. 258, 1892. Two of the skeletons are mounted in the Anatomical Museum of the University.

page 712 note * Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. xxx., Oct. 1895.

page 712 note † Anatomischer Anzeiger, 16th March 1887; Archives de Biologie, t. ix. p. 571, 1889.Google Scholar

page 713 note * Morphologisches Jahrbuch, vol. xix. p. 63, 1893.Google Scholar

page 713 note † At the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association, September 1885, Professor Struthers exhibited the carpal bones and cartilages of several cetacea, including the Narwhal, but his description was not published. See Keport of meeting, p. 1056. In the Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol. vi. p. 115, 1872, he referred in a page 716 footnote to the fibrous arrangements replacing muscles in the hand of the Narwhal, but did not speak of the bones.

page 716 note * Gervais, in his part of the great Ostéographie des Cétaceés by Van Beneden and himself, figured the maims of a foetal Hyperoodon in which five cartilages were present in the distal row, but he regarded the fifth of these as a pisiform.

page 718 note * This limb probably belonged to the Hyperoodon which Professor Struthers obtained in 1871, and the finger muscles of which he described in the Journal of Anat. and Phys., vol. vi. p. 115. At the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association, 1885, he exhibited the carpus of Hyperoodon along with those of other cetacea, but no description was published. Report, p. 1056. The radio-ulnar epiphyses were fused with their shafts. The radiale, intermedium, and ulnare were respectively 43, 58 and 45 mm. wide; the distocarpalia 1 to 5 were 39, 33, 35, 27, 30 mm. respectively.