6 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



the species that he named Nesophontes edithae, including many 

 nearly complete skulls and other parts of the skeleton from 

 caves at Morovis and Utuado. It apparently lived on the 

 island until comparatively late, perhaps post-Columbian, 

 times. 



This is the largest of the species at present known from the 

 Greater Antilles, but since no living examples have been found, 

 only the skeletal characters have been described. It was 

 probably about the size of a chipmunk. In life, the snout was 

 probably elongate and flexible, the head long and slender, the 

 eye small, the limbs only moderately long and probably with 

 five clawed toes on each; the thorax seems to have been narrow 

 instead of widened as in Solenodon, and the tail was probably 

 about as long as the body. The tubular skull lacked the jugal 

 bone. The anterior pair of incisors is not greatly enlarged as 

 it is in that genus; the canine is double-rooted and retains its 

 primitive large size, while the upper molar teeth have high 

 cusps, forming a V-shaped pattern. Only one of the original 

 four premolars is missing so that the tooth formula is: if, CT, 

 pmf , ml = 40. The humerus shows the entepicondylar fora- 

 men, the pubic bones are not united below, and the tibia and 

 fibula are nearly separated, becoming slightly united distally 

 in adults. "No living insectivore has such an assemblage of 

 generalized characters," a fact that makes the group of unusual 

 interest. It was made by Anthony the type of a separate 

 family, Nesophontidae, and is regarded by Winge as somewhat 

 ancestral to the moles. The skull length is about 40-44 mm. 

 The abundant remains found by Anthony represent a larger 

 and a smaller size, the former of which are taken to be of males, 

 the latter of females, an unusual difference among the insecti- 

 vores. 



Among the rugged and tree-covered hills of Puerto Rico, this 

 mammal must once have been a common species and doubtless 

 was preyed upon by owls, through the agency of which its 

 remains were probably brought into the limestone caves where 

 they have been found. Why this large species should be found 

 on this island alone, while on Cuba and Hispaniola only small 

 forms occur, or how it originally reached these islands at all, are 

 questions still unsolved. Nor is it clear that the introduction 

 of rats from Europe, or the burning of forests with intensive 

 cultivation, is alone responsible for its disappearance. Pre- 



