'_>4 BRADYPUS. CYCLOPES. 



DUSKY SLOTH. 



Type locality. Western Brazil. 



Geogr. Distr. Costa Rica, Central America, to Brazil and Bolivia. 



Genl. Char. Fur long; both sexes with a dark dorsal spot. 



Color. Upper parts of head dark brown; forehead, cheeks and 

 chin white, or yellowish white; black band across forehead, and one 

 through eye; dorsal patch pale yellow with a black central band, 

 whitish towards edge and spotted with brown; rest of pelage grayish 

 white; under fur white spotted with brown. 



Measurements. Head and body, 580 (cotype of B. griseus, Gray, 

 in Brit. Mus., O. Thomas in litt.). Skull: total length, 74; zygomatic 

 width, 46; interorbital constriction, 23.5; palatal arch to end of 

 palatal floor, 21.5; length of nasals, 18; length of upper tooth row, 

 25.5; length of mandible, 54; height of condyle, 27.5; at coronoid 

 process, 31 ; length of lower tooth row, 21.5. 



The Anteaters, as their name implies, are insectivorous, some of 

 the species subsisting mainly if not entirely upon ants, and as they 

 are destitute of teeth, the insects are captured by the long vermiform 

 tongue, which is covered with a viscid secretion from the maxillary 

 glands, that causes the ants to adhere to it. There are three groups 

 of Anteaters, separated by prominent and distinctive characters, 

 and the species range in size from the Great Anteater, four feet in 

 length without counting the huge tail, to the small arboreal species 

 not larger than a rat. The Great Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, 

 is strictly terrestrial in its habits, and the fingers are armed with 

 powerful claws, with which it tears apart the nests of the ants and 

 draws the insects into its mouth by means of the flexible tongue. 

 The species of the other genera, CYCLOPES and TAMANDUA, are in 

 the first, strictly, and in the latter, only partly arboreal. When 

 walking the toes have their points turned inwards, and the weight 

 is supported by a pad on the fifth digit, while the soles of the hind 

 feet are placed on the ground. The rostrum is greatly prolonged, 

 and the mouth is small and tubular. 



Fam. II. Jlyruieoopliagidse. Anteaters. 



Head conical, elongate, mouth small. Teeth absent. Ribs flat, 

 dilated on outer side. Body covered with hair. 



8. Cyclopes. 



Cyclopes Gray, Lond. Med. Repos., xv, 1821, p. 305. Type Myr- 

 mecophaga didactyla Linnaeus. 



