Findlay, G. H.2014-09-222014-09-2219680078-8554http://hdl.handle.net/10539/15578The writer undertook an examination of the type specimen of Olivieria because it seemed well suited to a study of the sensory nerve supply of the muzzle. Ever since Watson (1931) suggested that one might gauge the sensitivity, suppleness and therefore the possible hairiness of the muzzle by studying the size, numbers and position of the sensory nerve foramina in the fossil skull, it has seemed likely to point, albeit indirectly, to the origin of hair in the pre-mammalian stem. Such an abundance of nerves supplying the muzzle in scaloposaurid and bauriamorph reptiles would hardly be needed for scaly and inelastic cheeks. More probably, as Brink (1956) has emphasized, a mammalian type of tactile hair with soft cheeks had already come into being in these animals.enArticle