ORDER PERISSODACTYLA : ODD-TOED UNGULATES 353 



Apparently a Wild Ass inhabited Algeria up to at least about 

 A. D. 300, but subsequently became extinct. It was probably distinct 

 from any form now living. 



P. Thomas (1884, p. 45) based the name Equus asinus atlanticm 

 upon a mandible with teeth, found in late Quaternary deposits near 

 Constantine, Algeria. In these he found characters apparently inter- 

 mediate between those of Pliocene Hipparion and those of the 

 present-day Domestic Asses of Algeria. 



The name atlanticus may be applied at least provisionally to the 

 Algerian Wild Ass of Roman times. Werth (1930, p. 350, map) 

 indicates the presumable former distribution as including Morocco 

 and Tunisia as well as Algeria. 



"In a Roman villa at Bona, in Algeria, was found a large and 

 well-preserved picture, dating from about A. D. 300, of an African 

 hunt. Its main effect is a representation of a drive of carnivora. . . . 

 The use of the lasso is illustrated in the same picture, where a 

 Numidian, riding bareback and stirrupless, is throwing one at a wild 

 ass." (Jennison, 1937, pp. 145-146.) 



Antonius (1938, pp. 559-560) says: 



The true asses of African origin the wild stock from which our domestic 

 donkey descends belong to the many mammalia which became totally extinct 

 in our days. There were in Roman times at least three local races, one of 

 which became extinct before it was ever seen by a modern zoologist. It was 

 the "Asinus atlanticus Thomas," well known from the rock picture of Enfouss, 

 Algeria, published erroneously as "Quagga" by Frobenius. An excellent Roman 

 mosaic at Hippo Regius, the modern Bone, also shows that donkey. It 

 possessed a well-developed shoulder stripe, strongly marked limbs, and the 

 ears perhaps a little shorter than its East African cousins. The geographic 

 distribution of these Atlantic asses seems not to have exceeded the ranges 

 of the Atlas mountains. The time of their extinction is unknown. 



Mongolian Wild Ass; Chigetai; Dziggetai; Kulan ; Kulon 



ASINUS HEMIONUS HBMiONUS (Pallas) 



Equus hemionus Pallas, Nov. Comm. Acad. Sci. Imper. Petropolitanae, vol. 19, 

 p. 394, pi. 7, 1775. ("Ad Lacum Tarei Davuriae" = Tarei Nor, on the 

 Siberian-Mongolian boundary, about lat. 50 N., long. 115 E.) 



SYNONYMS: Equus onager castaneus Lydekker (1904); Equus (Asinus) 

 hemionus bedfordi Matschie (1911) ; Equus (Asinus) hemionus luteus 

 Matschie (1911). (C/. Harper, 1940, pp. 197-198.) 



FIGS.: Pallas, op. cit., pi. 7, and 1781, pi. 1; Lydekker, 19046, pi. 27 (bedfordi) ; 

 Lydekker, 1904c, pi. 18 (castaneus); Lydekker, 1912, pi. 15, fig. 2 

 (castaneus); Lydekker, 1916, p. 13, fig. 6 (castaneus); Carruthers, 1913, 

 pis. facing pp. 602, 606; R. C. Andrews, 1924, pp. 152-156, figs., and 1926, 

 pi. facing p. 129. 



During recent years, in all its vast range, the Mongolian Wild 

 Ass seems to have been reported as plentiful in only one region that 

 about Orok Nor and Zagan Nor in central Mongolia (about long. 



