The Talgai skull is a fossil humancranium found in 1884 in the Darling Downs squatting district near Talgai, South Queensland, Australia. The fossil attracted no attention until the Sydney meeting of the British Association in 1914. A report presented by Dr S A Smith of Sydney to the Royal Society in 1918 showed the skull to belong to a male of about sixteen years old who was contemporary with Pleistocene marsupials now extinct. The skull's brain capacity was larger than that of modern Australian aborigines, and the enormous palate, while resembling that of the anthropoids more closely than any human jaw yet discovered, most closely resembled the palate of the recently extinct Tasmanians. In 1920 Dubois reported that two skulls found by him in Java in 1890, more primitive than the Australoid, supported the Queensland evidence that early man migrated from Asia into the Australian region in the distant past. Research Talgai Skull
The hedgehog is various genera of small prickly carnivorous mammals of the order Insectivora, family Erinaceidae covered with spines in lieu of hair. They are solitary, nocturnal animals living in small thickets and feeding on caterpillars, beetles, slugs, worms, young mice, eggs and fruit. Hedgehogs are fond of raw or roasted flesh, and will devour cockroaches in large numbers when kept in houses.
By means of a special muscle the hedgehog is able to roll itself up into a ball, and in this form can defy most of its enemies. It has a rudimentary tail, elongated nose, short ears, with a cranium comparatively broad. The hind feet have five toes, and strong coarse hair covers some parts of the body. The teeth are numerous. Hedgehogs grow to about 30 centimetres long and can live up to six years. The hedgehog hibernates in winter. The female bears four to eight young at a birth, the young soon becoming covered with prickles. It is found in Britain and in most parts of Europe. Other species are found in Asia and Africa. Hedgehogs are so called on account of their cooked flesh closely resembling that of the hog or pig. Research Hedgehog
Sub-Phylum Craniata are the vertebrate group of animals. They are chordates which show a very definite advance in complexity of structure and activity. A proper head region can be identified. Organs of special sense are prominently developed and there is a definite brain enclosed in a cranium. Research Sub-Phylum Craniata
Bones (or osseous material) serve a number of diverse purposes in the human anatomy. In addition to providing structure, protection, and support for the organs of the body, bones also house marrow, which produces blood cells. Within the bones are also stored the calcium deposits which the body may access, via resorption, when needed. Additionally, bones detoxify the system, by removing heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic, as well as other toxins, from the bloodstream. Osseous tissue itself is made of water (about 1/4 of the bone weight), organic material (about 1/3 of the bone weight, most of which is the protein, ossein) and inorganic minerals (calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium predominate, though iron, sodium, potassium, chlorine, and fluorine are also present in small amounts). Most bones (with the exception of those of the skull) are initially pre-formed in cartilage and are then ossified as the newborn develops.
Two basic classification methods exist to categorize the bones of the body. These two classification systems are based upon anatomical location (axial or appendicular), and shape (long, short, flat, and irregular). Axial bones are the eighty bones which lie along the central, vertical axis of the body and support and protect the head and torso and include the skull and the spinal column.
Appendicular bones include the one hundred twenty-six bones which comprise the appendages, including the shoulders and hips, arms and legs, hands and feet, and fingers and toes. The shape classifications include long bones (such as the radius, humerus, and femur), the short bones (such as the carpals, tarsals, and manual and pedal phalanges), flat bones (such as the sternum, cranium bones, and scapulae), and irregular
bones (such as the vertebrae). Research Bone
The brain is the primary component of the nervous system, occupying the cranial cavity. Without its outermost protective membrane, the dura mater, the brain weighs an average of 1.4 kilograms, comprising about 97% of the entirecentral nervous system. The brain is connected to the upper end of the spinal cord (which connects through the foramen magnum of the skull) and is responsible for issuing nerve impulses, processing nerve impulse data, and engaging in the higher order thought processes. The brain is divided into three parts: the large cerebrum, the smaller cerebellum, and the brainstem leading to the spinal cord. The brainstem is also descriptively divided into the medulla oblongata, the midbrain, and the pons. The right hemisphere of the brain is a part of the cerebrum. The cerebrum, or forebrain, forms the bulk of the brain, formed of a large mass of white and grey neural fiber in the upper cranium. It is responsible for the higher thought processes (memory, judgement, reason), processing sensory data, and with initiating willful motor processes, such as voluntary muscle flexion. The cerebrum is composed of two lateral halves, or hemispheres, which feature a number of folds (gyri) and furrows (sulci) and which are connected in the middle at the medulla. Containing about a trillion neurons, the human brain is the most complex mechanism known, and its many functions are still largely a mystery. Research Brain
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Talgai Skull
