32 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



he visited several localities where fossil vertebrate remains had been 

 found. Undoubtedly the most significant of these was a rather ex- 

 tensive area, evidently of lake-deposited volcanic ash, in and around 

 the town of Estanzuela, near Zacapa in eastern Guatemala. Remains 

 of mastodon and giant sloth were observed in place. During his 

 short stay in Nicaragua Dr. Gazin examined a locality on the banks 

 of the Rio Viejo, to the north of Lake Managua, where Pleistocene 

 mammal remains were encomitered. These mcluded teeth of horse, 

 bison, and mastodon, and a pair of toxodon jaws. Wliile in South 

 America, Dr. Gazin spent extended periods at Buenos Aires, La Plata, 

 and Rio de Janeiro, pui'suing liis studies of early Tertiaiy mammals. 



Dr. Nicholas Hotton III, associate curator of vertebrate paleontol- 

 ogy, left in Februaiy 1961 for South Africa for a collecting season 

 in the famous Pennian Karroo beds. His work extended through 

 July 1961 and proved to be extremely successful. Accompanied by 

 J. W. Kitching, of the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological 

 Research, University of the Witwatersrand, he covered more than 

 4,000 miles in the Karroo area. Starting from Johannesburg, the 

 party spent some weeks on the east flank of the Drakensberg Moun- 

 tains, collecting fossils from the upper part of the Beaufort series. 

 From there they went to the classic area of the uppermost Beaufort, 

 around Burgersdorp and Lady Frere, where they completed another 

 2 weeks of successful collecting. Gradually they worked their way 

 westward across the Karroo, a course that took them downward 

 stratigraphically. The collection consists of nearly 200 specimens, 

 which will be added to the material of the National Museum. Many 

 of the specimens are of exhibit quality. 



The greatest importance of the collection lies in its being repre- 

 sentative of the Permo-Triassic synapsid fauna of Africa and in its 

 liigh proportion of good anatomical specimens. It is believed that 

 excellent coverage of the Beaufort series was achieved both hori- 

 zontally and vertically. The collection of Cynognathus zone material 

 is particularly complete, and there are a number of relatively rare 

 upper Lystrosaurus-zGn& theriodonts. In addition, the genera 

 Lystrosaurus and Diademodon are represented by several individ- 

 uals from a variety of stratigraphic levels and geographic locations. 

 Further progress in understanding taxonomic and ecological rela- 

 tionships of the Beaufort synapids depends upon more accurate strati- 

 graphic data than are currently available in the literature. However, 

 it is expected that the data obtained by Dr. Hotton and Dr. A. S. 

 Brink, scientific officer of the Bernard Price Institute, from various 

 sources will be valuable in marking out approaches to an ultimate 

 solution. 



In September Dr. Hotton worked several days in the vicinity of 

 Wichita Falls, Tex., examining collections of Permian amphibians 



