The Pleistocene of North America: and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°Hay, Oliver Perry
Science
The Pleistocene of North America: and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°
Hay, Oliver Perry
Paleontology -- North America; Paleontology -- Pleistocene; Vertebrates, Fossil
2. _Near Williams, Lawrence County._—In the collection of the University
of Indiana are some peccary remains found in Rock Cliff quarry, not far
northwest from Williams. These were described by the writer in 1912
(Geol. Surv. Indiana, vol. XXXIII, pp. 596, 605). The remains were
secured by Professor J. W. Beede. A part of a lower jaw which contained
a first true molar and impressions of the second and third molars was
referred to Leidy’s species _Tagassu lenis_. A large last upper molar
(op. cit., p. 605, plate IV, fig. 2) was referred with some doubt to
_Platygonus vetus_.
These remains, together with some bones of one or the other of these
species and a carapace of the box-tortoise still living in that region,
were inclosed in masses of stalagmite which appear to have pretty
completely filled an old cave in the limestone, encountered in quarrying
operations. According to Professor Beede, the cave had, when he saw it,
been all quarried away except one corner. This was from 20 to 30 feet
below the general surface at that place. It was about 100 feet above the
present level of White River, about on a level with the highest terrace
along that stream. The probabilities are that the peccaries and the
box-tortoise belong to one of the earlier Pleistocene interglacial
stages. Professor Beede is inclined to believe that the cave was filled
during the Illinoian glacial stage by streams carrying in mud and sand
and gravel. If this view is correct the inclosed remains would be at
least as old as the Yarmouth.
The species _Tagassu lenis_ is closely related to the peccary which now
lives in southwestern Texas and Mexico, and it has been regarded as
identical with it; but there appear to be reasons why it should be
retained under its own name. It was first described from teeth found
among materials coming from the phosphate deposits about Charleston,
South Carolina. Certainly many of the species found there lived during
the early part of the Pleistocene.
It is possible that certain teeth referred by Cope (Proc. Acad. Nat.
Sci., Phila., 1867, p. 155) to the existing peccary belonged to _T.
lenis_; but there is nothing known regarding their exact geological age.
Other teeth found in the lead region of Illinois were identified by
Wyman as those of the existing peccary. They too may have been those of
_T. lenis_. The writer regards the animals found in the lead crevices as
belonging to rather late Pleistocene, possibly to Peorian or Sangamon
times. As to the remains found in the cave in Lawrence County it is
probable that they date back to the Sangamon stage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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