Zool. [a. F. tarsier, f. tarse TARSUS. So named by Buffon from the structure of the foot: see quots.] A small lemuroid quadruped, Tarsius spectrum, of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and the Philippines, called also malmag or spectre, related to the aye-aye of Madagascar.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), IV. 248. The last animal of this class is called, by Mr. Buffon, the Tarsier…. The bones of … the Tarsus, are … so very long, that from thence the animal has received its name.
1785. Smellie, Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1791), VII. 171. The Tarsier, or Woolly Jerboa … is remarkable for the excessive length of its hind legs. The bones of the feet, and particularly those which compose the upper part of the tarsus, are prodigiously long.
1882. A. R. Wallace, in Contemp. Rev., March, 427. The Tarsier, or spectre-lemur, of the Malay islands.
