VI. SOME TOOTHLESS MAMMALS 



Certain curious animals, as sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos, 

 and others, have no incisor teeth, or are entirely toothless. 

 For this reason they are called edentates. They are 

 among the most remarkable and singular of all animals, 

 some being clothed in scales instead of hair, and others 

 so completely covered by the latter that they resemble 

 brush or mounds of vegetation. 



Fig. 32. —The Megatherium. 



In South America geologists have discovered the 

 remains of gigantic animals of this group, so huge, in 

 fact, that it is difficult to understand how they could 

 move. In excavating in the side of a river bed some 

 workmen uncovered the skeleton of a megatherium 

 (Fig. 32), which when mounted was eighteen feet high. 



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