Restoration of Elotherium / by O.C. Marsh.

  • Othniel Charles Marsh
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Restoration of Elotherium / by O.C. Marsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [From the American Journal op Science, Vol. XLVII, May, 1894.] Art. XLVII.—Restoration of Elotherium ; by O. C. Marsh. (With Plate IX.) The genus Elotherium, established by Pomel in 1847, rep- resents a family of extinct mammals, all of much interest. They were first found in Europe, but now are known in the Miocene of North America, not only on the Atlantic coast, but especially in the Rocky Mountain region, and still further west. This family includes several genera, or subgenera, and quite a number of species, some of which contain individuals of large size, only surpassed in bulk among their contempora- ries by members of the Rhinoceros family, and of the huge Bi'ontotheridce. Remains of this group have thus been known for nearly half a century, yet, until recently, comparatively little had been determined with certainty regarding the skeleton, or of the skull except the dentition, although Aymard, Leidy, Kowalevsky, and others, have made interesting contributions to the subject. In a late paper,* the writer gave figures of a finely preserved skull, and also of a fore and hind foot, of one of the largest species, Elotherium crassum, Marsh, and in the present article an attempt is made to restore the entire skele- ton of this animal, to serve as a typical example of the group. The restoration, one-twelfth natural size, given on Plate IX, represents a fully adult individual, which, when alive, was more than seven feet in length and about four feet in height. The basis of this restoration is the type specimen of Elothe- rium crassum, which was found by the writer in 1870, in the Miocene beds of northeastern Colorado, and described in 1873.f A number of other specimens since obtained in the same region, and still others from essentially the same horizon in South Dakota, all evidently pertaining to this species, were likewise used in the restoration. •Thin Journal, vol. xlvi, p. -108, plate viii, November, 1893. f Ibid., vol. v, p. 487, .June, 187:$.