. The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America. Mammals, Fossil; Paleontology. 202 THE AGE OF MAMMALS hypothesis that both the Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla are natives of Holarctica, or the northern hemisphere. The great arsinoitheres played the part in Ohgocene Africa which is now performed by the rhinoceroses in the dark continent: they were the giant mammals of the period. The dominant feature of the head is a pair of enormous forwardly-projecting bony horn-cores over the snout, which in life were sheathed with horn, sharply pointed in the old bulls, and blunted or rounded in the
. The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America. Mammals, Fossil; Paleontology. 202 THE AGE OF MAMMALS hypothesis that both the Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla are natives of Holarctica, or the northern hemisphere. The great arsinoitheres played the part in Ohgocene Africa which is now performed by the rhinoceroses in the dark continent: they were the giant mammals of the period. The dominant feature of the head is a pair of enormous forwardly-projecting bony horn-cores over the snout, which in life were sheathed with horn, sharply pointed in the old bulls, and blunted or rounded in the calves. A smaller pair of horns are also seen to rise above the eyes. As re- stored by Andrews, a moderate-sized bull (Arsinoitherium zitleli) stands five feet nine inches at the withers. The neck is short, the limbs long, the feet short and spread- ing, terminating in five short toes adapted, like the crested grinders, to grazing. These remarkable mammals, the affinities of which are entirely unknown, were apparently con- fined to Africa. Remains of hyracoids are very numerous, indicating that they ran in herds composed either of large varieties (Megalohyrax) equaling the smaller Characteristic Mammals Creodont-carnivores 5 genera Ptolemaiids Relationships unknown Myomorph rodents Anthrocotheroid artiodactyls 2 genera Suoid artiodactyls 2 genera Hyracoids, or hyraces Primitive proboscideans sub-aquatic and terrestrial Barytheres Arsinoitheres Sirenians Zeuglodonts. By permission of the Century Company. Fig. 91. — The extinct giant coney Megalohyrax of the Lower Oligo- cene of North Africa, together with its small successor, Hyrax, of recent times. After a drawing by Charies R. Knight. tapirs in size, or of the smaller but still more abundant Saghatherium. All these animals have an enlarged pair of fighting tusks, and the denti- tion throughout is remarkably similar to that of the existing hyraces, or. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that
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