. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution . FiG. IG.—Skull of Dibelodon andium. oped enamel band, but the lower jaw is quite short, though thesymphysis is longer and more trough-like than in the genera Mam-mut and Elephas. The lower tusks have entirely disappeared, andwith the shortening of the jaw the trunk must have become pendant,as in the modern elephants. The genus Dibelodon contains several species, among which areDibelodon humboldii (Cuvier), D. mirificium (Leidy), D. prcecursor(Cope), and D. andium (Cuvier). Of these Dibelodon humboldiiand D. andium ranged
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution . FiG. IG.—Skull of Dibelodon andium. oped enamel band, but the lower jaw is quite short, though thesymphysis is longer and more trough-like than in the genera Mam-mut and Elephas. The lower tusks have entirely disappeared, andwith the shortening of the jaw the trunk must have become pendant,as in the modern elephants. The genus Dibelodon contains several species, among which areDibelodon humboldii (Cuvier), D. mirificium (Leidy), D. prcecursor(Cope), and D. andium (Cuvier). Of these Dibelodon humboldiiand D. andium ranged into South America and were, in fact, almost EVOLUTION OF THE ELEPHANT LULL. 659. Fig. 17.—Skull of the American mastodon. the only proboscidians to cross into the southern hemisphere of theNew World. Some of these animals lived in the high Andes at anelevation of 12,350 feet above the level of the sea at a time when theregion had a greater rainfall than now and therefore a richer vege-tation. Mammut. This genus reaches its culmination in the American mastodon, acreature of great bulk, though about the height of the Indian ele-phant. It was, however,much more robust, a fea-ture especially noticeablein the immense breadth ofthe pelvis and the massive-ness of the limb feet were more spread-ing than in the true ele-phants, which, together with the character of the teeth and the conditions under which the re-mains are found, points to different habits of life from those of themammoth, the mastodons being more distinctively forest-dwellingtypes. The skull differs from that of the true elephants in its lower,more primitive contour, for while there is a large
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithsonianinstitutio, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840
