I7 8 STUDIES FOR STUDENTS 



apart. The earliest of the Carnivora are placed in a suborder, 

 the Creodonta opposed to the suborder Carnivora vera which 

 includes the recent Carnivores and their immediate ancestors. 



Creodonta. — These animals show their approach to the car- 

 nivorous type by the development of specialized cutting teeth, 

 the appearance of claws on the feet and the assumption of the 

 general form of the modern carnivores. Recent investigations 

 show that this suborder is perhaps the most primitive of the 

 modern mammals and is to be considered the ancestor of the 

 ungulate type. Osborn, in a discussion of the questions of 

 paleontology, said : " The most primitive type of Condylarth 

 {Euprotogonia) and of Amblypod {Panto lamb da) as recently 

 studied by Osborn and Matthew, strongly reinforces the hypothe- 

 sis first enunciated by Cope, that the source of the Ungidata is to 

 be found in the Creodonta. Upon the other side of the great 

 Mammalian tree, the numerous branches of Unguiculates or 

 primitive clawed types also have converged towards a Creodont 

 ancestry, as seen especially in the characters of the Ganodonta, 

 or ancestral Edentates, and of the Rodentia, if Matthew's suppo- 

 sition proves to be correct also of the Tillodontia. Thus all these 

 groups should be added to the Carnivora as Creodont deriva- 

 tives. The Carnivora extend back into Creodont prototypes ; but, 

 as in the case of the Artiodactyla and the Perissodactyla, the 

 actual points of contact or links between the two divisions are 

 yet to be discovered." He extends the discussion to the posi- 

 tion of the Creodonta with relation to the primates. He says : 

 " The point of contact of the primates with the Creodonta is still 

 entirely wanting, but their relations appear to be here rather 

 than with the Insectivora. 



" In spite, therefore, of the many remaining deficiencies or 

 absence of links in our paleontological evidence, it has none the 

 less come about that the Creodont type takes the ce?itral position 

 which was assigned by Huxley i?ii88o to the Insectivora, for the 

 known Creodonta are more generalized and more central than 

 any other of the known Insectivora, fossil or living, the known 

 Insectivora showing a very considerable specialization, especially 



