The Deseado Formation of PatagoniaLoomis, Frederic Brewster
Science
The Deseado Formation of Patagonia
Loomis, Frederic Brewster
Paleontology -- Patagonia (Argentina and Chile)
Femur, greatest length 202 mm.
Femur, diameter of head 26 mm.
Femur, width across head and greater trochanter 62 mm.
Femur, width of internal condyle 16 mm.
Femur, width of external condyle 24 mm.
The tibia is much flattened at the upper end and tapers to nearly
circular in section in the distal portion of the shaft. It is fused
proximally to the fibula, but free distally.
Tibia, length 222 mm.
Tibia, greatest width proximally 51 mm.
Tibia, least diameter of the shaft 24 mm.
Tibia, diameter of distal articular end 23 mm.
The fibula is a very slender bone, with the distal end swollen and
heavy. As it rises from the carpus it is so twisted that it unites with
the upper end of the tibia almost on the posterior surface.
Fibula, diameter of the articular end 17 mm.
Fibula, least diameter of the shaft 10 mm.
The calcaneum is of moderate length, and very stout, resembling that of
Adinotherium, except that it is longer.
Calcaneum, length 64 mm.
Calcaneum, width 28 mm.
Of the hind foot there is preserved only the distal portions of two
metatarsals, which are about the same size and character as those of
the front foot, and a phalanx of the first row, also similar to the
same one of the front foot.
Figure 65 gives a restoration of the animal based on the bones
described in the foregoing pages. The animal in all features turns out
a typical toxodont, adapted, by the cropping teeth, and the broad-faced
premolars and molars, for a grazing animal, but its advancement in
adapting itself to feeding on grass has not proceeded very far, as is
indicated by the shortness of the molars. The legs are longer than
in the other families of the toxodonts which would signify that it
had developed some speed, but the feet have progressed toward the
modification of the hoofs into claws, indicating a foot more like that
of a dog, in which the weight is not carried on the ungual phalanges,
but rather on the ball of the foot, or bases of the metapodials.
[Illustration: Fig. 65. (Half tone.) Restoration of Rhynchippus
equinus, Ameghino—⅙ natural size.]
I should not feel that this group was the ancestral one to later groups
of toxodonts, but it seems rather to represent a line which terminates
in the Deseado or very little later, not having run up into the
Santa Cruz. The line of ancestry for the toxodonts is rather through
_Leontinidae_.
=Rhynchippus pumulis= Ameghino
R. pumulis Amegh., 1897, Bol. Inst. Geog. Argen., t. 18, p. 464.
[Illustration: Fig. 66. R. pumulis—½ natural size; _A_, top of skull;
_B_, upper dentition, after Ameghino.]
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