Introducing the Moropus 



Nature mixed up a horse, a rhinoceros 

 and a giraffe and obtained — a moropus 



A CENTURY ago, Cuvier, the great 

 French scientist, in laying down 

 what is now known as his "Law of 

 Correlation," stated that horns and hoofs 

 distinguished only vegetarian animals. 

 Claws belonged to flesh eaters, according 

 to his law, and no animal which subsisted 

 on a meat diet had hoofs. 



This law of Cuvier 's was accepted for 

 decades. Recently the discovery of a 

 remarkable fossil has disproved it. In 

 prehistoric days there was a grazing 

 animal which had powerful claws instead 

 of hoofs. 



This animal, which has been called the 

 Moropus, was an American beast, that 

 roamed over what is 

 now Nebraska. Its 

 bones have been dis- 

 covered in a remark- 

 able fossil quarry - 

 the Agate Spring- 

 in the western part 

 of that state. The 

 American Museum of 

 Natural History has 

 been able to recon- 

 struct the Mo- 

 ropus. Mr. 

 V Charles 

 Lang 



M 



X 



mounted the skeleton of the beast. A 

 sketch of it as it appeared has been pre- 

 pared by Mr. Erwin S. Christman who 

 worked from directions given by Dr. Os- 

 born and Dr. Matthew. 



The animal is a strange combination of 

 horse, rhinoceros, camel or giraffe, but it 

 differs from them in having an enormous 

 claw on each front foot and a smaller claw 

 on each hind foot. The peculiarity of 

 this possession lies in the fact th^t grazing 

 animals do not require means of attack 

 such as claws. They need their hoofs 

 solely for moving about and not for at- 

 tacking prey or for digging. 



The teeth of the Moropus show that 

 the animal browsed on vegetation, but 

 what use he made of his big claws is still 

 a puzzle. The feet and limbs of this 

 animal were evidently stifif and clumsy, 

 which excludes the possibility of his hav- 

 ing used his claws much for fighting. 

 For the same reason the foot was of only 

 limited use in digging. Dr. Matthew 

 believes that these claws were designed 

 to aid the Moropus in scraping away sand 

 in dry river beds, or in other places where 

 he might make a waterhole in his quest 

 for drink. It is thought that the country 

 where he lived was not abundantly sup- 

 plied with drinking-water in the summer. 



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One would imagine this animal to be called a "rhinocerhorse" or a "girafferos" or something 

 like that, but his real name is Moropus and he lived at a time when the world was young 



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