CHAPTER SGlv. 
EDENTATA 
THE scarcity of edentates in the Deseado beds is in 
striking contrast to their abundance in the Santa Cruz 
formation. Whereas in this latter horizon over half of the 
finds are edentates, in the Deseado only eight per cent. of 
the total collection belong to this group, and this is doubt- 
less a larger proportion than these animals represented in 
the fauna; for the hundreds of small plates in a carapace, 
when scattered greatly, increase the chance that some part 
of an individual will be found, and most of the eight per 
cent. of finds are single plates. Most of the plates found 
represent armadilloes, our collection containing but one 
plate of a glyptodont, and no gravigrades. Ameghino’s 
collections present about the same relations, but in the 
repeated trips he found a few more traces of glyptodons 
and a very few gravigrades. 
This scarcity of edentates can not be taken to mean that 
they were not developed, for they are a peculiarly South 
American group, and as they were developing somewhere 
into their great complexity, I take it to mean that the 
climatic conditions were unfavorable in this particular 
section, 
As noted above, all previous finds have been isolated 
plates. We were fortunate enough to find one specimen 
consisting of a carapace with ten rows of movable plates 
in place, and parts of four rows of the pelvic buckler to- 
gether with over fifty isolated plates. A second specimen 
had some fifty associated plates which were mostly from 
the pelvic buckler. 
Dasypoda 
The representatives of this group are so poorly known 
in the Deseado beds that Ameghino has, in general, used 
