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XXXV.—The Morphology of the Manus in Platanista gangetica, the Dolphin of the Ganges
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
In July 1909 I communicated to the Society a description of the skeleton of Sowerby's whale, and discussed the morphology of the Manus in the Ziphioids, Mesoplodon and Hyperoodon, and in the Delphinidæ. In this paper I propose to consider the morphology of the manus in the pentadactylous Gangetic dolphin, the type example of the Platanistidæ.
The most complete account of the anatomy of Platanista is contained in the chapter on the Cetacea in the important “Anatomical and Zoological Researches” by the late Dr John Anderson. As director of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, he collected and studied both the soft parts and the skeleton in a number of specimens of both sexes. He analysed the constitution of the manus, and assigned to the carpal bones names corresponding with those used in descriptive human anatomy.
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References
page 508 note * Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxix., part vii., p. 687.
page 508 note † Vol. i, text, pp. 417 e.s., and vol. ii., plate xxxi., e.s., London, 1878.
page 508 note ‡ This specimen had been sent from Calcutta as an exhibit for the London Fisheries Exhibition.
page 509 note *
He stated on p. 432 that the length of an aged female was 
feet, whilst that of his largest male with a mature skeleton was scarcely 7 feet.
page 509 note † The fœtus in utero figured by Anderson in plate xxxi, showed columnar ridges on the gums, marking the outlines of the teeth which had not cut the gums; also a few scattered hairs projecting from the skin of the tip of the jaws.
page 510 note * The humerus of the adult St Andrews specimen showed an interesting pathological condition: the head, with the adjoining part of the shaft, was hollowed into a large cavity, and the articular surface, as well as that of the glenoid cavity, was roughened with bony nodules; possibly the animal had been shot early in its life and a bullet had lodged in the bone and hollowed out the cavity, from which doubtless pus had freely discharged.
page 510 note † “Die Hand der Cetaceen,” Vergleich. anat. Entwick. Untersuch. an Wahltieren, Zweiter Theil, 1893, Jena.
In Eschricht's specimen six carpal bones apparently were present, but no details were given. See Wallich's translation, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., March 1852.
page 510 note ‡ See my memoir on Sowerby's whale, Journ. Anat. and Phys., vol. xx., Oct. 1885.
page 512 note * The names given by Anderson to the carpal bones differed from those used in the text. The radiale-carpale is his trapezium, the os centrale his radiale, carpale 2 the trapezoid, carpale 3 the magnum, carpalia 4+5 the cuneiform.
page 513 note * Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., p. 105, pl. 25, Nov. 22, 1866.