FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOUTH 

 AFRICAN FOSSIL REPTILES 



By Robert Broom 



M 



ANY of the specimens in the 

 Broom Collection of South 

 African fossil reptiles are of 

 special importance to the student inves- 

 tigating the deep problems of evolution 

 and comparative anatomy, hut others 

 are of the greatest interest to the general 

 public as they throw- 

 much light on the past 

 life of the world and on 

 the struggles of the ani- 

 mals for existence in these 

 remote ages. The animal 

 life of the Karroo forma- 

 tion will be better under- 

 stood by considering the 

 principal types living at 

 three different periods. 



The first fauna which 

 we consider may be called 

 the Pareidsaurus fauna 

 and it lived about seven- 

 teen million years ago. 

 The huge Pareiasaurus 

 was a heavily-built slow- 

 moving animal rather 

 larger than a half-grown 

 hippopotamus and prob- 

 ably as sluggish in its 

 movements as the large 

 tortoises of the Galapa- 

 gos Islands. Certainly it 

 was a plant-eating ani- 

 mal and being compara- 

 tively helpless against its 

 carnivorous enemies it 

 probably protected itself 

 by digging into the sandy 

 and muddy banks after 

 the manner of the Aus- 

 tralian porcupine ant- 

 eater. This we infer 



from the fact that it had powerful dig- 

 ging claws on the front toes and that the 

 back was protected by a number of bony 

 plates. 



Along with Pareiasaurus there was 

 another group of plant-eating animals, 

 some of them even larger than Pareia- 



Shoulder girdles and front limbs of a very large Dinocepha- 

 lian, Tapinocephalus atherslonei Owen, from South Africa, now in the 

 possession of the American Museum 



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