. The geography of mammals. fn • ■. Fig. 11.—The Lama.{Lama peruana.) to British Columbia, while the latter is found only inWestern South America. Finally, the Tapirs (Tapiridze) are represented by fourspecies, all of which are peculiar to this region, the onlyother existing Tapir known being the Indian Tapir of the THE NEOTROPICAL REGION 61 Malay Peninsula. The explanation of this curious case ofdiscontinuous distribution is afforded by the past historyof the group. During Miocene and Pliocene times,members of this genus and its allied forms were foundboth in North America and also throughout
. The geography of mammals. fn • ■. Fig. 11.—The Lama.{Lama peruana.) to British Columbia, while the latter is found only inWestern South America. Finally, the Tapirs (Tapiridze) are represented by fourspecies, all of which are peculiar to this region, the onlyother existing Tapir known being the Indian Tapir of the THE NEOTROPICAL REGION 61 Malay Peninsula. The explanation of this curious case ofdiscontinuous distribution is afforded by the past historyof the group. During Miocene and Pliocene times,members of this genus and its allied forms were foundboth in North America and also throughout the OldWorld from France to China. This gives us directevidence of the former much wider extension of thefamily of Tapirs, and bridges over the present great gapin its distribution. As already stated, the fauna of the Neotropical Regionis almost as remarkable for the absence of certain familiesas it is for the presence of peculiar forms. This is speciallynoticeable in the Ungulates. There is no existing re-presentative of the fo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidgeogra, booksubjectmammals
