. The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America. Mammals, Fossil; Paleontology. 252 THE AGE OF MAMMALS North American Upper Oligocene anchitheres. Most surprising is the new, broad-headed rhinoceros (7". aurelianensis), named Teleoceras by Hatcher^ from the presence of a horn at the very tip of its nasals, with a rudiment of a second horn in the center of the frontals, as observed by Gaudry. This animal is in all probability from northern Asia, and is destined to become. Fig. 127. — Skulls of the French and American teleocerine rhinoceroses. (,4) TclcoccraH aurelianensis (cast), {B


. The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America. Mammals, Fossil; Paleontology. 252 THE AGE OF MAMMALS North American Upper Oligocene anchitheres. Most surprising is the new, broad-headed rhinoceros (7". aurelianensis), named Teleoceras by Hatcher^ from the presence of a horn at the very tip of its nasals, with a rudiment of a second horn in the center of the frontals, as observed by Gaudry. This animal is in all probability from northern Asia, and is destined to become. Fig. 127. — Skulls of the French and American teleocerine rhinoceroses. (,4) TclcoccraH aurelianensis (cast), {B) Teleoceras medicornutus (original). In the American Museum of Natural History. one of the most distinctive and widespread of Miocene rhinoceroses; al- though short-footed, or brachypodal, and short-limbed, it was a great traveler; its range extended to Florida. The small narrow horn at the tip of the snout was probably an effective defensive weapon. The acera- theres, or hornless companions of Teleoceras, are distinguished by relatively slender limbs and tetradactyl fore feet; the nasals are narrow, pointed, and typically smooth, but they occasionally show the rudiments of a small horn. These animals are decidedly dolichocephalic. As above noted, in the Burdigalian beds of Portugal there occurs a third phylum of rhinoc- eroses, a diminutive form (Dicerorhinus tagicus) ^ distinguished by horns on both the nasals and frontals, and remotely ancestral to the existing rhinoceros of Sumatra.^ We shall speak of these animals as Sumatran rhinoceroses or dicerorhines. A diminutive ancestor of the dicerorhine phylum has also been recently discovered in the sables de VOrleanais, and Roman * believes that there existed in Europe two phyla of these dicero- rhine rhinoceroses, one of more diminutive size, one of larger size, terminat- ing respectively in the small and the large Upper Miocene races of D. schleiermacheri. 1 Hatcher, J. B., Amer. Natural, Vol. XXVIII, March, 1894, p. 241. 2


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectpaleontology, bookyea