MASTODON 



Mastodon floridamis 



AMONG the most abundant fossils of the Florida collection are the remains 

 of a species of Mastodon different from the familiar one, distinguished 

 as the American Mastodon, M. americamis , whose remains are so widely dis- 

 tributed throughout the region of the United States. The Florida species in 

 the character of its dentition seems to have been more nearly related with the 

 Mastodon angitstidens of Europe than with our common American Mastodon. 



The remains under investigation consist of many islolated molar teeth 

 and bones, together with numerous fragments of others, mostly of very young 

 or comparatively young animals, of half a dozen or more different individuals. 

 Among thirty- five specimens of molar teeth and considerable fragments of 

 many others, there are half a dozen last molars and the anterior portion of 

 four others, none of which are worn except several slightly in the summit of 

 one or two of the anterior lobes. In the collection there are several fragments 

 of maxillee with teeth, and there are four detached exoccipitals with their 

 condyles of two young individuals. Of the larger bones of the limbs there 

 are a number of fragments, mostly of young animals, and with detached 

 epiphyses. Thus, in the collection there is the proximal extremity of a mature 

 femur and five detached epiphysial heads of other femora. The most complete 

 specimens preserved are a number of the bones of the feet, especially those of 

 the carpus and tarsus, many of which are co-ordinate of several individuals. 



The specimens of molar teeth in the collection illustrate nearly the com- 

 plete series, and they present different conditions of age, some being unworn 

 and others more or less worn. 



The molar series of the genus Mastodon has been until recently com- 

 monly regarded as consisting of three milk or deciduous teeth, with a single 

 premolar as a vertical successor to the second milk tooth, and behind these 

 three adult, true or permanent molars.* 



* Owen, Odontography, 1845, 615 ; Falconer, PalEeontological Memoirs, 1868, vol. i , 98. 



M. Larlet, in the Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France, 1859, 489, plate xiv., represents 

 the molar dentition of Mastodon aiigustidens as consisting of three milk molars, of which the posterior 

 two are succeeded vertically by two premolars, and which behind in the adult are succeeded by three 



