. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. ntific names are simplyverbal handles by which we may grasp animalsto describe them, and Dr. Le Conte, to showhow little there may be in a name, called abeetle Gyascutus. Owens name of Zeuglodon,although not tenable as a scientific name, istoo good to be wasted, and being readily re-membered and easily pronounced may be usedas a popular name. One might think that a creature sixty orseventy feet long was amply long enough, butDr. Albert Koch thought otherwise, and didwith Zeuglodon as, later on, he did with theMast
. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. ntific names are simplyverbal handles by which we may grasp animalsto describe them, and Dr. Le Conte, to showhow little there may be in a name, called abeetle Gyascutus. Owens name of Zeuglodon,although not tenable as a scientific name, istoo good to be wasted, and being readily re-membered and easily pronounced may be usedas a popular name. One might think that a creature sixty orseventy feet long was amply long enough, butDr. Albert Koch thought otherwise, and didwith Zeuglodon as, later on, he did with theMastodon, combining the vertebras of seveiralindividuals until he had a monster 114 feetlong! This he exhibited in Europe under thename of Hydrarchus, or water king, finallydisposing of the composite creature to theMuseum of Dresden, where it was promptlyreduced to its proper dimensions. The nat-ural make-up of Zeuglodon is sufficiently com-posite without any aid fi:om man, for the headand paddles are not unlike those of a seal, theribs are like those of a manatee, and the shoul-. RULERS OF THE ANCIENT SEAS 63 der blades are precisely like those of a whale,while the vertebr£B are different from thoseof any other animal, even its OAvn cousin andlesser contemporary Dorudon. There werealso tiny hind legs tucked away beneath skin,but these, as well as many other parts of theanimals structure were unknown, until Schuchert collected a series of speci-mens for the National Museum, from which itwas possible to restore the entire skeletonoOwing to a rather curious circumstance thefirst attempt at a restoration was at fault;among the bones originally obtained by there were none from the last halfof the tail, an old gully having cut off thehinder portion of the backbone and destroyedthe vertebras. Not far away, however, was abig lump of stone containing several vertebraof just the right size, and these were used asmodels to complete the papier-machd skeletonshown at A
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectpaleontology, bookyea
