MEGATHERIUM 



391 



surfaces of the bilophodont type. The elephants, which sub- 

 sist on similar food to that of the Megatherium, had their 

 grinding machinery maintained by a numerous succession of 

 teeth : the same end was attained in the Megatherium, by a 

 constant growth and renovation of the same teeth. The for- 

 mative pulps were lodged in the deep basal cavities, exposed 

 in the section figured (fig. 135). The molar teeth were five 

 in number on each side of the upper jaw, and four in number 

 on each side of the lower jaw (fig. 136). 

 In this bone the fore part is much pro- 

 longed, and grooved above, to support 

 a long, cylindrical, powerfully muscular 

 tongue, by which the Megatherium, 

 like the giraffe, stripped off the small 

 branches of the trees its colossal strength 

 enabled it to prostrate. The dentition 

 of Mylodon differed only from that of 

 Megatherium, in the shape of the teeth. 

 The same may be said of the allied 

 genera Megalonyx and Scelidotlicrium. 

 They were contemporary and geographi- 

 cally associated genera of the same, now 

 quite extinct, family of great terrestrial 

 sloths. 



In like manner, the small loricateel 



Fi°\ 136. 

 and banded quadrupeds of South T . , , ,, . 



x r Lower jaw and teeth ol 



America Called armadillos were repre- Megatherium (Pleistocene, 



sented in pleistocene times in that South America), 



continent by as well-defended species, rivalling the Megathe- 

 rioids in bulk. The specimen of the almost entire skeleton and 

 bony armour (fig. 137) is one of the smaller species of these 

 great extinct non-banded armadillos ; yet it measures from the 

 snout to the end of the tail, following the curve of the back, 9 

 feet ; the tesselated trunk-armour being 5 feet in length and 7 



