13 



STUDIES IN TASMANIAN MAMMALS, LIVING AND 

 EXTINCT. 



Number V. 

 Zaglossus harrissoni, Sp. nov. 



By 



H. H. Scott, Curator of Launceston Museum, 



and 



Clive Lord, Curator of the Tasmanian Museum, Hobart. 



Plate V. 



(Read 13th June, 1921.) 



Among some fossil bones recently recovered by Mr. K. 

 M. Harrisson, from a swamp upon King Island, we have 

 found evidence of a giant Ant Eater, that exceeded very 

 considerably in point of size the modern Monotreme. The 

 evidence is furnished to us in the form of a nearly perfect 

 right femur, and a very small portion of the proximal end 

 of a humerus. We fortunately possess several femora of 

 the modern animals, collected by Mr. L. L. Waterhouse in 

 January, 1916, during a visit to King Island upon Geological 

 Survey Work, and are therefore enabled to make a direct 

 comparison between the Pleistocene, and the more recent 

 Monotremes of that locality. We are evidently dealing with 

 a smaller animal than '^Zaglossus hacketti," of Western Aus- 

 tralia, since that animal was fully double the size of the 

 modern Monotreme, in point of femoral and humeral length, 

 in addition to an added robustness of the skeleton generally, 

 but the extent to which it overtopped the Ant Eaters of 

 modern King Island will be appreciated by the following 

 table of measurements. 



FEMUR OF GIANT. F^MUR OF MODERN 



MONOTREME. 



Total length = 72 mm. (2 13-16 Total length = 53 mm. (2y8 



inches ) . inches ) . 



Proximal width — 30 mm. (1% Proximal width = 18 mm. (% 



full). approx.). 



Distal width = 35 mm. (1% Distal width = 19 mm. (% full). 



inches) . 



Thickness of shaft = 10 mm. (7-16 Thickness of shaft = 5 mm. (3-16). 



full). 



In life, this Pleistocene Ant Eater was, by estimation, 

 some twenty-six inches in length (660 mm.) and more robust, 

 in proportion, to the largest Tasmanian Tachyglossus of 



