PLEISTOCENE PECCAEIES FROM THE CUMBERLAND 



CAVE DEPOSIT. 



By James Williams Gidley, 

 Assistant Curator, United States National Museum. 



Remains of extinct peccaries are among the most abundant fossils 

 found in the Cumberland Cave deposit, discovered a few years ago 

 in the vicinity of Cumberland, Maryland.^ 



Two genera are recognized — Platygonus and MyloKyus — ^the for- 

 mer being represented by young and adult specimens of both sexes, 

 pertaining to more than 30 individuals, which include one nearly 

 complete skeleton and 15 more or less complete skulls. Compared 

 with this abundant and good material Mylohyxis is poorly repre- 

 sented. But the few specimens obtained of the latter, although frag- 

 mentary, also add something to our knowledge of this genus. 



This material from the Cumberland Cave not only adds some new 

 species to the list, but forms the basis of the following observations 

 and definitions relative to the classification and relationships of the 

 peccaries in general, which definitions have for their special object a 

 clearer understanding of the Pleistocene species with which the 

 present paper is more intimately concerned : 



The first notice of fossil remains of Pleistocene peccaries was 

 published in 1848 ^ by John L. LeConte, who described under 

 the name Platygonus compressus a few fragments of a skull and 

 other bones found in a fissure deposit in the vicinity of Galena, 

 Illinois. Since that time a considerable number of specimens, repre- 

 senting various species, have been described by other authors. Some 

 of these descriptions and determinations were based on fragmentary 

 material, others on material which included nearly complete skulls 

 and skeletons. Yet always there seems to have been considerable 

 confusion, only partially cleared up by the more recent writers, re- 

 garding the proper generic and specific distinctions, and even family 



1 A preliminary report of the occurrence and character of this deposit, together with 

 an uncompleted list of the species represented, was published In August, 1913. Gidley, 

 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 46 (1914), No. 2014, pp. 95. 96. This report has been sup- 

 plemented by a semipopular account published in the Report of Smithsonian Institution for 

 1918, now in press. 



» Amer. Journ. Sci., sen 2, vol. 5, 1848, pp. 102-106 ; Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts Sd., vol. 3, 

 1848, pp. 257-274. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 57— No. 2324. 



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