Guide to the galleries of mammalia (mammalian, osteological, cetacean) in the Department of Zoology of the British Museum (Natural History).
- British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology.
- Date:
- 1892
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Guide to the galleries of mammalia (mammalian, osteological, cetacean) in the Department of Zoology of the British Museum (Natural History). Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![D8 [Case2o.] The Myrmecophayidoi, or Aiiteateis, diti'er from the Sloths by their drawn-out snouts, entire want of teeth, elongate })alate-bones, and long slender lower jaws. The most remarkable species is the Great Anteater (Myrmecophaya juhata), an animal with a long narrow head, about a foot in length, the greater part of which is made up by the maxillary bones. There are no zygomatic arches to the skull, but little biting-power being needed. The clavicles are exceedingly rudimentary. In the third family of Edentates, or Armadilloes {Dasypodidce), teeth are present, generally 2 = 28 to 38 in number, but in • the Giant Armadillo amounting to 2 = 80 to 100. These teeth are small and simple, with single roots. In the genus Tatusia a set of functional double-rooted milk-teeth precedes the simple one-rooted permanent ones, and traces of a milk-dentition have also been found in Dasypus, Zygomatic arch complete. Second and third, and often several of the other cervical vertebrae ankylosed together. The clavicles are well developed, and the whole anterior limb is enormously strengthened to support the huge digging-claws. The pelvis (as in the Sloths and Anteaters) is ankylosed to the vertebral column both by the ilia and ischia, and in one genus [Chlamydophorus) the dermal bony shield is united to the pelvis by vertical pillars. The fossil forms referable to the Dasypodida, mostly found in the Pleistocene deposits of South America, are both numerous and interesting, many of them showing relations with still existing genera, while others, notably the huge Glyptodons (see Geol. Guide, p. 70), of which five genera are known, present characters so peculiar as to necessitate their being placed in a separate family. Of the Old-World Edentates, the Pangolins, or Manidce, are characterized by their entire want of teeth, elongated skulls, which are without zygomata, slender jaws, and by their long powerful tails, of which the vertebrae, numbering from 28 to 46, are provided with large chevron bones. The sternum is produced backwards nearly to the pubis, and the retractor muscles of the tongue are attached to its posterior part. There are no clavicles. A few traces of fossil Pangolins have been found in the lower Pliocene of India and the island of Samos.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28122574_0110.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
