DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALS IN TIME. 



563 



the largest living carnivorous Marsupial being no larger than 



a shepherd's dog. The flesh-tooth or earnassial molar of 



Thylacoleo measures two inches 



and a quarter across, or very 



nearly double the measurement 



of the same tooth in the largest 



existing Lion. 



Order III. Edentata. The 

 Edentates, like the Marsupials, 

 are singularly circumscribed at 

 the present day. No member 

 of the order is at^the present F i g . 2 i S .- 

 day indigenous in Europe. 

 Tropical Asia and Africa have the Scaly Ant-eaters or Pangolins ; 

 and in Africa occurs the Edentate genus Orycteropus. South 

 America, however, is the metropolis of the Edentata, the order 

 being there represented by the Sloths, the Armadillos, and the 

 true Ant-eaters. It is also in South America that by far the 

 greater number of extinct Edentates have been found ; and, as 

 in the case of the Australian Marsupials, the fossil forms are 

 gigantic in size compared with their living representatives. 



The Sloths (Bradypodida) of the present day were repre- 

 sented in Post-tertiary times by a group of gigantic forms 

 referable to the genera Mylodon, Megalonyx, and Megatherium. 



Fig. 216. Megatherium. From the Upper Tertiaries of South America (Pleistocene). 



\ 



Of these, Mylodon attained a length of eleven feet, and Mega- 

 therium (fig. 216) was eighteen feet in length, with bones as 

 massive, or more so, than the Elephant. 



In the same way, the little banded Armadillos of South 

 America were formerly represented by gigantic species, con- 

 stituting the genus Glyptodon. The Giyptodons (fig. 217) differed 

 from the living Armadillos in having no bands in their armour, 



