CHAPTER Ii 
THE DESEADO FAUNA 
THE exposure of the Deseado, which the Amherst party 
worked, yielded 293 specimens, each presumably repre- 
senting an individual. (There were besides these a few 
that were indeterminate and are not therefore included.) 
The consideration of the fauna as a whole suggests certain 
ideas as to the country in which the animals lived, and 
also certain comparisons with the fauna of the preceding 
and later faunas. 
The first striking feature is the presence of so many 
excessively large animals, as Asmodeus, Parastrapotherium, 
and Pyrotherium, in each case forms larger than a rhinoce- 
ros. Further than that they are in each case the largest 
members of their family, even larger than the representa- 
tives in the later Santa Cruz. This would indicate a period 
in which living conditions were at a high grade, sug- 
gesting both abundance of food and a moderate climate. 
The following table will give a good idea as to the range 
of species, and their relative abundance in the fauna, also 
a suggestion as to the class of food they used; and from that 
an idea as to what sort of country they occupied: 
PER Num- 
- SPECIES Foop COUNTRY 
CENT BER 
Hegetotherium shumwayi 
ies) 
Prosotherium garzoni 
Prosotherium triangulidens 
Eutrachytherus grandis s 
Eutrachytherus spegazziniu { Grass, bark and Plains 
chytherus spegazzinius 
re ene ‘I 8 \ browse 
Isoproedrium solitarium 
Phanophilus dorsatus 
_ 
eEPN HPN N 
Argyrohyrax proavus 
Plagiarthrus clivus 
14% 40 ‘TYPOTHERIA 
