| OCR Text |
Show 492 MR. R. LYDEKKER ON SCELIDOTHERIUM. [Nov. 16, new species, for which they proposed the name of S. capellini, on the evidence of a lower jaw from the Pleistocene of Buenos Ayres. In 1881 Dr. Burmeister published in the Monatsb. k. preuss. Ak. Wiss. (pp. 374-380) a description with figures of the manus, pes, and knee-joint of a skeleton of Scelidotherium from the Pleistocene of the Argentine Republic, which was referred to S. leptocephalum. In 1885 Dr. Fischer1 described a skeleton lately acquired by the Paris Museum of Natural History, which he refers to S. leptocephalum ; while in 1886 Seiior Ameghino2 has applied the new name of Scelidotherium! bellulum to a single tooth from Parana. Finally it may be observed that the so-called Scelidotherium ankilosopum, Bravard3, is the same as Mylodon (Grypotherium) darwini, Owen. Other memoirs of minor import, which need not be quoted here, have also been published. It will be seen from the above that no less than eleven specific names have been applied to animals of this group ; six of which are included by Messrs. Gervais and Ameghino, in the memoir cited, in Scelidotherium, while four are referred to Platyonyx, the eleventh being of later date. Among the seven included under the former genus, there is no difficulty in regard to accepting the typical S. leptocephalum and S. tarijense; S. capellini, however, as being founded on a specimen which has not yet been figured, must be regarded merely as a nominal species; while S. minutum, Lund, is apparently founded upon immature specimens, and S. bellulum upon a single unfigured tooth. With regard to S. bucklandi and S. oweni of Lund, the type specimens are so imperfect that they do not appear to me to afford characters of sufficient importance to enable other specimens to be identified with them ; and I have therefore been compelled to ignore these names when considering the affinities of the specimens described below. Of the four so-called species ranged by Messrs. Gervais and Ameghino under Platyonyx, the only one that can be regarded as satisfactory is P. brongniarti, which is founded on a nearly complete skull. P. cuvieri is founded on a fragment of a mandible which does not afford more satisfactory characters than the one on which S. bucklandi is founded ; while P. blainvillei and P. agassizi have been named on still more unsatisfactory evidence, and must certainly therefore be regarded as not of more than nominal value. The object of the present communication is, first, to show that one of the specimens figured by Sir Richard Owen in the memoir in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' already cited, does not belong to S. leptocephalum, which also leads to the conclusion that the specimen described by Dr. Burmeister in his second memoir under the same name is likewise distinct; and, secondly, to describe a skull belonging to a series of specimens, from the Pleistocene of Chili, recently acquired by the British Museum. In the course of this paper it will be shown that there appears no reason for the retention 1 Oomptes Eendus, vol. ci. p. 1291 (1885). 2 Bol. Ac. Nac. Cordoba, vol. ix. p. 184 (1886). 3 In P. Gervais's ' Zool. et Pal. GeneVales,' s6r. i. p. 132 (1867-69). |
