66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



as the body, definitely ringed basally, and armored throughout its 

 length. 



Genus DASYPUS Linnaeus. Four-toed Armadillos 

 Many separative characters are available for the genus Dasypus 

 which in Panama requires comparison only with the genus Cabassous. 

 Of the four toes on the front foot the middle pair are subequal in 

 size. The skull as a whole is narrow, with a long, slender, nearly 

 parallel-sided rostrum; the jugal is broadest anteriorly, the outer 

 surface deeply furrowed ; the upper tooth series is implanted well in 

 front of the orbital fossae ; the coronoid process of the mandible is 

 long and slender, and rises high over the condyle. 



DASYPUS NOVEMCINCTUS FENESTRATUS Peters. 



Costa Rican Four-toed Armadillo 



Dasypus fenestratus Peters, Monatsber. k. preuss. Akad. Wissensch. Berlin, 

 1864, p. 180. Type from Costa Rica. 



The common armadillo, the Linnaean species Dasypus novem- 

 cinctus, is divisible into several slightly differentiated geographic 

 races, but their number and relationships are not well known. Ex- 

 ternally the forms seem so much alike that, allowing for individual 

 variation, there is no readily apparent character by which to separate 

 D. novemcinctus novemcinctus of Brazil from the North American 

 subspecies reaching central Texas. The skulls, however, differ in 

 details which are fairly constant and therefore useful in determining 

 the status of the forms. The skull of D. n. novemcinctus, as repre- 

 sented by Brazilian specimens, is characterized by the depressed, less 

 inflated frontal region as compared with D. novemcinctus mexicanus * 

 and D. novemcinctus texanus; the jugal and squamosal meet at or 

 behind the highest point of the posterior process on the upper border 

 of the zygoma (meeting in front of this point in D. n. mexicanus and 

 D. n. texanus) ; the antorbital foramen is shorter; and the palatines 

 extend rather well forward along the median line between the 

 posterior molars. The skulls of D. novemcinctus texanus, the most 

 northern form, are usually distinguishable from those of D. n. mexi- 

 canus by decidedly larger size. The name D. n. mexicanus, with 

 which Tatusia leptorhynchus Gray is probably synonymous, seems 

 applicable to the form occurring as far south as eastern Honduras. 



The skull of a specimen from Gatun, Canal Zone, is very similar 

 to one from Talamanca, Costa Rica, assumed to represent Dasypus 



1 Type locality fixed by Bailey as Colima, State of Colima, Mexico (North 

 Amer. Fauna, No. 25, p. 52, Sept. 26, 1901). 



