vi] DISTRIBUTION OF SELECTED GROUPS 127 



continent later. India possesses representatives of 

 all the recent families ; Africa proper has all but 

 bears ; South America is relatively the poorest con- 

 tinent. 



Creodonta or archaic mammals with a carnivorous 

 dentition have existed, in great numbers, since the 

 Eocene in North America, whence they spread into 

 Europe, and later into Africa. Most of these beasts 

 died out with the Eocene, or rather they were modern- 

 ised into the typical Carnivora, in various parts of the 

 world. Some however kept on to almost recent times 

 as highly specialised Creodonts, e.g. the sabre-toothed 

 tigers : Nimravm in North American Oligocene ; 

 Machaerodus from Miocene to Pleistocene in Europe 

 and Asia, whence in the Pleistocene it appeared as 

 Smilodon in America which this terrible beast con- 

 quered to the far south. Meanwhile, with the mid- 

 Miocene, somewhere in Eurasia were evolved modern 

 cats of the genus Felis. With the Pliocene these 

 found their way into North America and later into the 

 south ; being such late arrivals, they were debarred 

 from the Antilles. Cats are now cosmopolitan ex- 

 cepting the Antilles, Madagascar and the countries 

 to the east of Java and Borneo. 



Civet-cats or viverras are an exclusively Old 

 World family, dating from Eocene Europe. Their 

 great age explains the existence of the Fossa (Crypto- 

 procta), and some others peculiar to Madagascar. 



