CARNIVORA. 397 



Viverra itself seems to have persisted without change since the 

 latter part of the Eocene period. Characteristic remains of this 

 animal occur in the Upper Eocene of Hordwell, Hampshire ( V. 

 hastingsice) and in the contemporaneous Phosphorites of Quercy, 

 France ; other remains are also found in the Lower Pliocene 

 (Siwalik Formation) of India. 



FIG. 223. 



Ictitherium hipparionum; left upper dentition, slightly reduced. L. Pliocene; 

 Pikermi, Greece, la, 2a, molars; c, canine; i, incisors; t. m, premaxilla ; 

 7w, maxilla; p, palatine; Ip 4p, premolars. (After Gaudry.) 



One of the Viverroids, Ictitherium (fig. 223), from the Lower 

 Pliocene of France, Hungary, Greece, the Island of Samos, and 

 Maragha, Persia, forms a transition between the family to which 

 it technically belongs and that of the Hyaenidae. Though its 



dental formula is that of a Viverroid, namely, .' ' ' , ' P -' ln ' ~ 



" i. 3, c. 1, pm. 4, m. 1 



its upper sectorial tooth is enlarged by the addition of a third 

 lobe as in the Hyaenidae. Its skeleton is also comparatively 

 stout, and certain coprolites found in the same deposit as its 

 remains in France (Mt. Le"beron) indicate a carnivore which ate 

 bones like the existing hyaenas. So far as the dentition is 

 concerned, every link is known between Ictitherium and the 

 true Hycena, in which there is usually only one diminutive 

 upper molar, no second lower molar, and the first lower pre- 

 molar is usually wanting. These annectant forms are found in 

 the Pliocene both of Europe and Asia, and the genus Hyaena 

 itself was common in Europe until late in the Pleistocene 



