I.ÖNNBERG, ON A NEW ORYCTEROPUS FROM NORTHERN CONGO. 5 



O. wertheri and cethiopicus thus seem to be decidedly more 

 longtailed. 



The relation between the length of head and body on 

 one side and that of the tail on the other may, however, be 

 somewhat variable in these animals and it should be inte- 

 resting to know whether the number of caudal vertebrse is 

 constant or not. In a skeleton of O. af er I have counted 

 the same niimber of vertebrae as Cuvier ^ has recorded, viz. 

 25, but in O. erikssoni there remain 27 and probably, at 

 least, 1 but perhaps 2, at the extreme tip of the tail are 

 löst. This may be interpreted as an indication that the 

 Congo animal has a somewhat longer tail than the Aard- 

 vark of Cape. The number of caudal vertebrse of the other 

 species is not known. 



The ears of this new species seem to be very short. Al- 

 though the animal has been very large I cannot estimate 

 the length of the ear to have been more than about 135 — 

 140 mm. The softened and stretched ear on the saved piece 

 of skin is, in fact, only 130 mm. 



In O. af er Sclater indicates the ear of a female speci- 

 men of much smaller size to be 172 mm. Other authors re- 

 cord 180 — 162 mm. as the measurement of the same member 

 in O. af er. For O. ivertheri Matschie uses the expression 

 '>auriculis longissimis» and gives the exact measurement to 

 be 172 mm. It t hus belongs to the longeared species. 



O. senegalensis has also long ears viz. 180 mm. O. haus- 

 sanus shorter ears measuring 155 mm. (Matschie 1. c. p. 

 103) and O. cethiopicus is still more shorteared so that accor- 

 ding to Sundevall the ears measured only 140 mm. in a 

 male of 1500 mm. tot. 1. and 136 mm. in a female of 1440 

 tot. 1. Compared with other dimensions O. erikssoni is thus 

 the most short-eared of all known species and tliis appears 

 to be a very good character. It resembles in this respect 

 O. cethiopicus more than the others, but the latter has a 

 Jong tail that is half as long as head and body. A combi- 

 nation of these two characters derived from the dimensions 

 of ears and tail distinguishes thus O. erikssoni from all other 

 species as it is the only short-tailed species with short ears. 



If we now tnrn to such characteristics as may be de- 

 rived from the skull and skeleton, they ought to be still 



1 Rech. sur les Oss. foss. Ed. 3. T. V. P. 1, p. 137. Paris 1825. 



