The intended meaning of this piece is lost to the mists of time, but I still think it’s pretty cool. A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) sits upon the skull of a cat (lower organism) and holds the skull of a chimpanzee (higher organism) depicting its place in the chain of things. This is a reference to the classic “Philosophizing Monkey” which shows a small simian contemplating the skull of a human.