1910.] Taxonomic Hidory of the Creodonta. 295 



Hycenodon (1838) and Pterodon (1839) inaugurated a controversy which 

 has continued to the present time. Laizer and Parieu, Laurillard, Pomel, 

 Aymard and Gaudry regarded Ilyaenodon and its alhes as related to the 

 carnivorous Marsupials; de Blainville, Gervais, Pictet, Owen, Lydekkcr 

 and Filhol emphasized their resemblances to the Placentals. Finally 

 Filhol proved that Hywnodon had three deciduous molars and lacked 

 epipubic bones. 



Cope in 1876 proposed the order "Bunotheria" to embrace various 

 suborders of Eocene and later Unguiculates, including the "Creodonta." 

 Into the latter suborder he put the "Insectivora with tritubercular superior 

 molars" ("Talpidae, Chrysochloridfe, Esthonychid?e, Centetidee (= Leptic- 

 tidpe olim")) and the extinct carnivorous families "Oxysenidfe, Miacidse, 

 Amblyctonida-, Mesonychidae." The term "Creodonta" was restricted to 

 its generally accepted meaning by Schlosser (1880). Huxley (1880) sug- 

 gested that Hijaenodon and Pterodon might be an "extreme development of 

 that type of the Insectivora which is at present represented by Centetes." 

 He also believed that the ancestors of the modern carnivores were "penta- 

 dactyle, plantigrade, claviculate and had brains with relatively small cerebral 

 hemispheres and large, completely exposed, cerebella," that they had the 

 dentition and jaw angle of Otocyon and were provided with epipubes. "Ac- 

 cording to our present system of classification, such a mammal would be 

 grouped among the Insectivora, or as a transitional form between them and 

 the Didelphia." 



The discovery by Ameghino (1887) of Borhycena and other fossil Pata- 

 gonian " Sparassodonts," which resembled the carnivorous Marsupials on 

 the one hand and the Creodonts on the other, caused the revival of the old 

 view that after all the Creodonta had been derived directly from Mesozoic 

 carnivorous Marsupials (Ameghino, Lydekker). The affinities of the 

 "Sparassodonts" are discussed below (p. 303). 



Wortman (1901) after transferring the Viverravid?e from the Creodonta 

 to the "Carnassidentia" (true Fissipede Carnivores) took the view that " the 

 Creodonta and Carnassidentia probably arose side by side from the Mesozoic 

 Marsupials . . . . " and he referred the origin of the Creodonta to some such 

 type as the Upper Cretaceous genus Didelphops Marsh. 



Matthew (1906) replied to this that "if we set aside superficial and 

 adaptive characters, and rest principally upon deep-seated resemblances 

 such as are found in the characters of the base of the skull, the dental and 

 dorsolumbar formula, etc., we find every known creodont very much nearer 

 to the modern Carnivora than to the modern marsupials.'" This problem is 

 discussed below (p. 298). 



The family and superfamily classification of the Creodonts has been 



