2O6 



AMBLYPODA DINOCERAS AND ITS ALLIES 



in the carpus are alternating in position. The toes are five in 

 both feet, and are very short. There is a hint of commencing 

 " perissodactylism " in the fore -feet at any rate. The brain is 

 small and the hemispheres smooth. 



The Amblypoda, or Amblydactyla, are so called on account of 

 their short and stumpy feet and toes. They were held by Pro- 

 fessor Cope to be on the direct line of ancestry of both Perisso- 

 dactyles and Artiodactyles, a view which is on the whole not 

 accepted at present. 



As is the case with other groups, the Amblypoda commenced 

 existence as a sub -order with relatively small forms such as 



FIG. 114. Skull of Protolambda bathmodon. x f . e.a.m, External auditory meatus ; 

 m, mastoid ; m.f, mastoid foramen. (After Osboru.) 



Pantolambda, the most ancient type known, which is in many 

 respects a transition between the later forms and other groups of 

 mammals such as the Creodonta. 1 The race culminated and 

 ended in the giant Dinoceras and Coryphodon, and spread into the 

 Old World. In spite of their smooth and diminutive brain, these 

 mammals were able to hold their own and to multiply into many 

 species and genera ; in this they were perhaps aided by their 

 formidable tusks and by the horns which many of them possessed. 

 The teeth seem to imply an omnivorous diet, which was quite 

 possibly an additional advantage in the struggle for existence. 

 It does not seem to be necessary to divide off the Dinoceratidae 

 into a sub-order equivalent to the Coryphodontidae as was done 



1 Or perhaps rather to the primitive Ungulates Condylarthra. It is especially 

 compared with Periptychus of that group. 



