PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTION AND THEIR SOLUTION. 



'55 



FIG. 20- ANT-EATER. 



adapting them for an active life amid the dense forests of the region. 

 Those apes have no callosities; their thumbs are less perfectly 

 developed than in Old World apes; and cheek-pouches are also 

 wanting. They include (fig. 19) the spider monkeys, howlers, capu- 

 chins, marmosets, and many other peculiar and special forms. The 

 bats are likewise peculiar, in that they are represented by the famous 

 vampires and other blood-sucking species. The rodents are the 

 chinchillas, the curious capybara, the pacas, and agoutis and tree 

 porcupines, possessing, like the apes, prehensile tails. The carnivora 

 include the racoons, 

 which take the place 

 in this region of the 

 weasels of the Old 

 World. Deer and 

 llamas represent the 

 ruminants of the re- 

 gion; and the tapir 

 and peccaries represent 

 other forms of hoofed 

 quadrupeds. It is the 

 group of the Edentate quadrupeds, however, which finds in Neo- 

 tropical territory its peculiar home. If the marsupial kangaroos and 

 wombats characterise Australia as their headquarters, no less typically 

 in South America do the sloths, true ant-eaters (fig. 20), and armadillo 

 (fig. 21) represent the fulness of Edentate development. With the 

 exception of a few species of scaly ant-eaters or pangolins (fig. 22) 

 occurring in the Ethiopian and Oriental regions, and the " aardvark " 

 or ground hog of South 

 Africa, the Edentate 

 mammals are absolutely 

 confined to the Neo- 

 tropical region; and it 

 is in the recent deposits 

 of South America that 

 we likewise discover the 

 fossil remains of those 

 huge extinct edemata, 

 of which the Megathe- 

 rium^ Mylodon, and 

 Glyplodon are well- 

 known representatives. 

 Last of all, the marsupial opossums, an apparent remnant of Australian 

 life, find their home in the Neotropical area. As remarkable excep- 

 tions and absentees from the lists of South American quadrupeds 

 may be mentioned the 2nsectivora y of which order represented by 



FIG. 2i. ARMADILLO. 



