58 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



serpent in form, was the one most remotely re- 

 lated to snakes. 



Zeuglodon, the yoke-tooth, so named from 

 the shape of its great cutting teeth, was in- 

 deed a strange animal, and if we wonder at 

 the Greenland Whale, whose head is one-third 

 its total length, we may equally wonder at 

 Zeuglodon, with four feet of head, ten feet of 

 body, and forty feet of tail. No one, seeing 

 the bones of the trunk and tail for the first 

 time, would suspect that they belonged to the 

 same animal, for while the vertebrae of the 

 body are of moderate size, those of the tail 

 are, for the bulk of creature, the longest 

 known, measuring from fifteen to eighteen 

 inches in length, and weighing in a fossil con- 

 dition fifty to sixty pounds. In life, the ani- 

 mal was from fifty to seventy feet in length, 

 and not more than six or eight feet through 

 the deepest part of the body, while the tail 

 was much less ; the head was small and 

 pointed, the jaws well armed with grasping 

 and cutting teeth, and just back of the head 

 was a pair of short paddles, not unlike those 

 of a fur seal. It is curious to speculate on 



