164 LÖNNBERG, SOME REMAINS OF NEOMYLODON LISTAI. 



and the distances between them are not always the same. 

 Although the usual distance is about 1 mm. or less, it some- 

 times can be nearly 3 mm. from one hair to the next in one 

 direction or the other. On the leg the hair looks as if it 

 was more dense, but this is, I believe, only a resnlt of the 

 shrinking which has affected that portion more than the 

 others. At least in the state in which the skin is now there 

 are no traees of nnderfnr or wool as in Bradyps in which 

 the hairs are arranged in gronps (conf. de Meijere 1. c. p. 3(31). 



The skin does not seem to be really scaly, but in its 

 present dry state the epithelial Stratum is fall of cracks on 

 the surface and these cracks are deepest at the places where 

 the hairs protrude. In that way the skin gets the appearance 

 of being provided with some kind of irregulär and only in- 

 completely developed scales (hg. 7) and as if a hair originated 

 behind each scale. In the present state it cannot however 

 be discerned if these sham scales really correspond to papilhe 

 from the cutis or if they are only results produced when the 

 skin dried. It is however not quite impossible that these 

 things could be rudiments of scales which perhaps have been 

 better developed in the ancestors of »Neomylodon» (conf. above). 

 If the skin of the tail had been found it might have been 

 more possible than now to get a definite answer to this ques- 

 tion, because the scales use to be retained on the tail even 

 in animals which elsewhere do not have any scales (for in- 

 stance Myrmecophaga and Tamandua: Weber). The remains 

 which have fallen into the hands of Dr. F. Ameghino were 

 not scaly, he says. 1 



The shape, size and general appearance of the claw has 

 already been described above, where also the opinion is ex- 

 pressed that it most probably has belonged to »Neomylodon 

 because there is no other animal, at least none existing now, 

 in South America, which has such claws. It is not sharply 

 pointed and compressed as the claws of a carnivorous animal 

 and those of Bradypus nor is it with regard to its size so 

 strongly developed as it should have been if it had belonged 

 to a digging or burrowing animal (for instance Myrmecoph aga 

 etc.), nor are the lateral parts of the »Krallenplatte» (Boas) 

 curved and doubled up ander the sole so that they cover the 



1 >La face externe montre un epiderme cöntinu, non ecailleux — — 

 (1. c. p. 7). 



