2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 66 



can fauna much older than any which is known to have included 

 modern genera of monkeys. These circumstances, together with 

 the facts that spider-monkeys are habitually tamed by the Indians in 

 tropical America, and that the type of " Montaneia " was found in 

 a cave used for human burial, make it seem probable that this par- 

 ticular set of teeth owed its presence in Cuba to man's agency. If 

 this assumption were true it should be possible, so far as this can be 

 done with such incomplete material, to identify the animal with some 

 species now alive. 



As the teeth of "Montaneia" dififer specifically^ from those of all 

 the spider-monkeys in the National Museum I sent copies of the 

 photograph here reproduced to Dr. J. A. Allen and to IMr. Oldfield 

 Thomas. Dr. Allen could find no Ateles in the American Museum 

 of Natural History that he would regard as probably conspecific 

 with the animal whose teeth were represented. Mr. Thomas wrote 

 under date of February 19, 1916, that a specimen in the British 

 Museum collected at Nanegal, Ecuador, and supposed to be referable 

 to Ateles fuscipes Gray, agreed " fairly closely " with the teeth of 

 "Montaneia," though it did not show the unusual depth of the 

 V-shaped notch on outer side of m^ and m^. As the notches in 

 question appear to have been made somewhat unduly conspicuous 

 by the lighting of the specimen when it was photographed, this dis- 

 crepancy is probably not very important. While not willing, on the 

 sole basis of the mandibular dentition, to assert specific identity 

 between the Ecuadorean Ateles and the animal to which the Cuban 

 teeth belonged, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Martin A. C. Hinton, who also 

 compared the photograph with the specimen, did not regard such 

 identity as impossible.' Nothing further seems needed to lead to the 

 following conclusions : 



That the teeth of the animal described by Ameghino as Montaneia 

 anthropomorpha have no more than a superficial resemblance to 

 those of the Pongidae and Hominidae. 



That the generic name Montaneia Ameghino, 191 1, must for the 

 present be placed in the synonymy of Ateles Geoff roy, 1806. 



' The chief peculiarity is the large size. Measurements : canine, 5.4 x 6.8 ; 

 height of canine from base of enamel on outer side, 11.6; anterior premolar, 

 5.0x5.4; median premolar, 4.0x5.0; posterior premolar 4.2x5.2; first molar, 

 6.2x5.2; second molar, 6.2x5.6; third molar, 6.0x5.4. 



*"To say that Montaneia was probably or possibly conspecific with the 

 Ecuador Ateles would be too strong, but I would not say it wasn't" (Thomas 

 in letter dated March 23, 1916). 



