The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 10 (of 10)
Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers)
Animals; Mammals
(3) Arctogaea. This vast realm is clearly capable of subdivision into four
regions, which will be considered in detail later. In the meantime the
points of likeness between these subdivisions is more marked than are
either the resemblances or the {86} differences of any one of them to
either of the two realms which have just been defined. The two realms that
have been discussed retain their distinctness from each other and from
Arctogaea for a considerable way back into the Tertiary period. It is not
until we reach very early Tertiary times that Edentates are met with in
North America; and then it cannot be regarded as absolutely settled that
the Ganodonta are really the forerunners of the Armadillos, Sloths, etc.
Nor do we find Marsupials in Europe until far back in time, and at a
corresponding period in North America. Indeed the fauna of South America in
late Tertiary times was even more distinct than it is now; for then we had
confined to that region the Toxodonts, Glyptodonts, _Macrauchenia_, and
other forms, while in Australia there were still Marsupials. In late
Tertiary times Europe and India were by no means so distinct from Africa as
they are to-day. North America does not resemble the Old World quite so
much as the subdivisions of the Old World resemble each other; but, as will
be pointed out later, there are and were very substantial agreements. The
Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Giraffe, Hippopotamus, _Orycteropus_, are now
distinctively African or Indian animals; but all these genera, or at least
families (in the case of the Giraffe), have occurred in Europe during quite
recent times. _Lycaon_ indeed, now confined to Africa, is thought to have
had a European origin from its occurrence in caves there. The Hyaena and
the Lion, certain members of the Horse tribe, Apes, and other animals, were
also but are not now European.
India again, and the Oriental region generally, once possessed the
Hippopotamus, the Chimpanzee, Giraffidae, the Antelopes, _Cobus_,
_Hippotragus_, _Strepsiceros_, and _Orias_, which are now purely African
animals. It shares at present with the Ethiopian region the Catarhines,
including the Anthropoid Apes, the Lemurs, Tragulina (the genus
_Dorcatherium_ is also known from fossils in India), _Manis_, _Hyaena_, the
Cheetah, Elephant, Rhinoceros, and the Ratel. There is, in fact, no order
of mammals which is now absent from one of these three regions though
present in the others, save the Lemurs, and they occurred in past times in
Europe. The Tapir of India is known fossil in Europe, and the latter
continent had its Monkeys and even Anthropoids. On the other hand, North
America is more distinct. It has no Lemurs, Apes, Elephants, Rhinoceroses,
Tapirs, Old World Edentates {87} (Effodientia), Viverridae, Horses, or
Antelopes, excepting _Antilocapra_, a type of a separate division of
Bovidae. But since several of these groups have been represented in recent
times, no primary line of division can be profitably drawn.
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