Abstract
SINCE I have examined and sketched the feet of one or two dead gorillas in the Zoological Society's Gardens, may I be permitted to say that no one acquainted with the foot of this ape can dissent from Sir Ray Lankester's condemnation (NATURE, November 24, p. 758) of the photograph of the cast of the foot of the Kivu specimen published by Mr. Akeley? The photograph successfully conceals the fundamental resemblance, so far as mobility is concerned, between the hallux of the gorilla and that of monkeys, and suggests a resemblance, which does not exist, between the hallux of this ape and of man. It is, therefore, entirely misleading; but it is quite in keeping with Mr. Akeley's statement that the big toe in the gorilla “has grown away from the thumb, which is useful in climbing, towards the big toe, useful for walking” (World's Work, October 1922, p. 377).
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POCOCK, R. The Gorilla's Foot. Nature 112, 827 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/112827b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/112827b0
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