100 Dorothea Bate — A Gigantic Land Tortoise 



II. — On Remains of a Gigantic Land Toetoise (Testudo 



GTMNESICUS, N.SP.) FROM THE PLEISTOCENE OF MeNORCA. 



By Dorothea M. A. Bate. 



rpHE receipt of a grant from the Trustees of the Percy Sladeu 

 i_ Fund in 1911 made a return to the Balearic Islands possible 

 in the latter part of the same year. Majorca was visited for the 

 third time while a search for Pleistocene ossiferous remains was 

 undertakeji for the first time in Menorca and Ibiza, from which no 

 Pleistocene mammalian remains had previously been recorded. Xo 

 success attended the search in Ibiza. The deposits discovered in 

 Menorca yielded remains of Myotragus halearicus, those of a gigantic 

 land tortoise, and of a large Eliomys, which proves to be a hitherto 

 undescribed species. 



The remains of Testudo were obtained from two rock fissures 

 in the Miocene Limestone of the Bajoli Promontorj' north of 

 Ciudadela, the former capital of Menorca. In one of these it was 

 interesting to find bones of Myotragus associated with those of the 

 Chelonian, although the former only occurred at the highest point 

 of the deposit, of which the greater part had been worn and 

 weathered away. This was the only instance in which these two 

 species were found in the same deposit, although several other 

 localities in the island yielded remains of Myotragus. 



Although small and of a fragmentary character, the collection 

 which forms the subject of this paper includes specimens I'cpresenting 

 individuals varying greatly in size and indicating a range between 

 the proportions of T. pardalis from South Africa to those equalling, 

 if not surpassing, the dimensions attained by the Madagascan 

 T. grandidieri. 



Kemains of gigantic land tortoises have been found very widely 

 distributed both in the Old World and the New, and existed during 

 many geological epochs in much the same form as their repre- 

 sentatives of to-day. Discoveries of Pleistocene forms in the Old 

 World have not, however, been very numerous. Deposits in 

 Madagascar have yielded quantities of remains ; but in Europe, 

 Malta and Gibraltar seem to have been, until now, the only localities 

 from which examples had been obtained. Those from Gibraltar 

 consist of only two fragmentary specimens, described by Dr. Leith 

 Adams, ^ who also published a description,- with figures, of the small 

 collection of T. robusta obtained from the cave deposits of Malta by 

 Admiral Spratt. 



During the last few years further Chelonian remains have been 

 obtained by Mr. N. Tagliaferro from various rock fissures in Malta. 

 These are now in the Malta University Museum of Natural History, 

 but casts of nine specimens of limb-bones from Corradino have been 

 presented to the British Museum (Natural History). All these are 

 of large size ; one especially, an imperfect liumerus, indicates an 

 animal of enormous proportions, equalling, or even surpassing, those 

 of T. elephantina from Aldabra. In this (B.M. ■^^■^) the circumference 



^ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxxiii, p. 188, 1877. 

 ^ Op. cit., p. 177 et seq., pis. v, vi. 



