The Mounted Skeleton of Moropus in the 

 American Museum 



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MDROPrS is a l>iii- t'Xtinet ani- 

 mal that livid in Xorth Anior- 

 iea. It was oiu' of the oddest 

 looking heasts of its time, a (■oiiil)i na- 

 tion of horse, rhinoeeros. and raiiirl ny 

 giraffe in its general a])pearanee. but 

 with enormous claws on the front feet 

 and smaller elaws on thr hind feet. 

 utterly uidiko the hoofs of the ordinary 

 ungulates or ''hoofed mammals." 



All of the large herbivoi-nus animals 

 today and nearly all of the extinct 

 kinds have hoofs on the feet. They 

 have no need for claws. The feet are 

 used to carry them about, but not for 

 attacking other animals or for tearing 

 their prey or for digging, as in the 

 clawed animals. This is so general a 

 rule that it was long thought to be uni- 

 versal, a law of nature, and it was, in 

 fact, included in the Law of Correla- 

 tion expounded by the famous natural- 

 ist, Cuvier, a century ago. Horns and 

 hoofs he declared were the exclusive 

 prerogative of vegetarian animals. If 

 the horns were in pairs, so too were the 

 hoofs. Conversely, claws pertained to 

 carnivorous animals for the most ])art. 

 while no carnivorous animal had hoofs. 

 They tell a story about Cuvier to 

 illustrate his confidence in this ''Law 

 of Correlation." It seems that one of 

 his students, who desired to give the 

 Maitre a scare, disguised himself as the 

 Devil, with the usual horns and hoofs 

 and l)arl)-tipped tail. He jienctrated 

 at midnight to Cuvier's room and. 

 standing by his bedside, roused him 

 from sleep with the announcement. 

 "Cuvier, Cuvier, wake u]i! 1 am the 

 Devil and am come to eat yt>u uj)." The 

 scientist ga.^ed at him sleepily, looked 



him o\ci' for a moment, and replied. 

 "llmm hoi-ns — hoofs- you're gi-ami- 

 ni\oroii>. ^'oii can't di) it." Whereupon 

 lie turned ovi'.r and went to sleep again 

 ;in<! the student retired discojufited. 



But for all Cnxicr's faith in his Law 

 of Corri'lal ion. there are some excep- 

 tions, and our Moropus is one of them. 

 Many years ago, when the first scat- 

 tered bones of this animal and its fossil 

 relatives in Europe were discovered, the 

 teeth and skull ])arts were described as 

 related to the rhinoceroses and the ex- 

 tinct pala^otheres and titanotheres, all 

 of them lielonging to the Perissodaetyl 

 order of ungulates which includes al>o 

 the horse and the tajtir. The claws and 

 other footbones were supposed to belong 

 to an entirely different animal related 

 to the anteaters. Cuvier himself de- 

 scribed one of the great claws as a "pan- ' 

 golin gigantesque""— a gigantic ant- 

 eater. It was many years before it was 

 found that these skulls and these foot- 

 l)ones belonged to the same animal. No 

 complete skeletons have yet been found 

 in the Old W..rld. 



In this coiinti"\' a few scattered hones 

 of Mnro/iiK had been found thirty or 

 forty years ago. hut it was not until the 

 discovery of the gi'eat Agate Spring 

 Fossil Quarry in w(\<tern .Vebraska 

 that much was known about the animal. 

 This quarry was first discovered by Mr. 

 James H. Cook, of Agate, Xel)raska. 

 and was opened up and worked on a 

 large scale by the Carnegie Museum of 

 Pittsburgh between 100 1 and 1008.1 



' They ol.taiiucl :i i;ic:il scrir.s of .skriftons of 

 llip little pair horned rhinoceros, Diceratherium. 

 :i skeleton of the giant pig, Dinohj/us. and a 

 number of incomplete skeletons of the Moropun 

 from which a mount was reconstructed. 



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