3B Scientific Gorilla Skull (Gorilla gorilla), male - Manual (Page 3)

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Gorilla 1
Some dimensions of the original gorilla skull
4
.
max. length of cranium (inc. brow ridge and occipital crest) 221 mm
max. breadth of cranium 157 mm
skull breadth in region of max. postorbital narrowing 75 mm
volume of cranial cavity = “brain size” 675 ccm
length of face 217 mm
breadth of upper face (external biorbital breadth) 150 mm
breadth of zygomatic arch 189 mm
max. separation of zygomatic arch from skull wall 55 mm
length of palate 120 mm
breadth of palate 47 mm
bicondylar breadth of mandible 142 mm
bigonial breadth of mandible 154 mm
height of corpus mandibulae 43 mm
ramus height of mandible 131 mm
ramus breadth 80 mm
total mass of skull 1550 g
mass of cranium 1020 g
mass of mandible 530 g
Author: Dr Dr Olav Röhrer-Ertl, Primates Section, SNSB, Munich
1 This model was cast from a replica of the original skull from the Senckenberg Institute and Natural History Museum in
Frankfurt/Main. For educational reasons the abraded teeth of the original were reconstructed following younger female
specimens in Munich, so as to be able to give a better representation of the tooth pattern. In this process, some adapta-
tions to the jaws had to be made.
2 Muscles cannot attach to one another, but require hard tissue for this purpose.
3 With increasing flattening of the tooth biting surfaces, the chewing force must be increased, which leads to increased
growth of the masticatory muscles, which in turn leads to more pronounced moulding of muscle attachment surfaces.
Here too, the distribution of the ever-increasing chewing force over the facial skeleton results in more pronounced
structures. Here we see the effect of the spatial relationship between the largest organ in the head, the brain, and the
others, particularly the eyes. In the African Ponginae this relationship is mainly horizontal (one behind the other),
whereas by contrast in the orang-utan they are arranged more vertically (one above the other).
4 All dimensions were taken, from an original, by Dr sc. A. Windelband, Berlin. In general, model dimensions will vary
slightly from these.