ON AN EXTINCT CARNIVORE. 425 



32. On the Skull oE an extinct Mammal related to ^'Eluropus 

 from a Cave in the Ruby Mines at Mogok, Burma. 

 By A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S. 



[Received May 25, 1915 : Read June 8, 1915.] 

 (Plate I.* k Text-figure 1.) 



Index. 



Page 

 JElm-eidopas hacoid, gew. ei ai). \\ 428 



The rare and remarkable mammal ^Elaropus, now contineil to 

 the highlands of eastern Thibet, is evidently the survivor of a 

 group which must havtj had a wide geographical range in compara- 

 tively modern geological times. It is so completely intermediate 

 between the Procyonidte and the Ursidte, that it is sometimes 

 placed in the one family t, sometimes in the other % ; and its 

 I'elationships to the Pliocene Hijceaarctos are so obvious §, that it 

 must doubtless be regarded as a somewhat modified survivor of 

 the common stock from which the Procyonida; and Ui-sidaj have 

 divei'ged. No closely related fossil forms, however^ have hitherto 

 heen recoi'ded ; and the recent discovery of a skull of an allied 

 extinct species is therefore of interest. 



The new specimen (text-fig. 1) was obtained from a cave at the 

 ruby mines, Mogok, Upper Burma, by Mr. A. L. Bacon, and 

 brought as a gift to the Biitish Museum by Mr. F. Atlay. The 

 skull lacks both zygomatic arches and the anterior end of the 

 palate with the incisors and three of the premolar teeth. It 

 must, in fact, have lain exposed for some time in the cave ; for 

 the Avhole of the sagittal crest has been gnawed away by a rodent, 

 evidently a porcupine ||, and there are similar tooth-marks along 

 the lambdoidal border and other parts of the occiput. Otherwise 

 the fossil is well preserved and all its charactei-istic features are 

 shown. 



Althoiigh it is not mineralised, the bone is remarkably dense 

 and heavy, as in the skull of ^Ehtropus onelanoleucus ^i . Nearly 

 all the sutures between the elements are closed, and the specimen 

 represents a fully adult individual, which was slightly larger and 

 more robust than the described examples of the existing species. 

 It agrees with the latter in all essential respects, such as the 



* For explanation of the Plate see p. 428. 



t E. Ray Lankester, "On the Affinities of jEluropus melanoleucus" Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, Zool.,'ser. 2, vol. viii. (1901), pp. 163-172, pis. xviii.-xx. 



X K. S. Bardenfleth, "On the Systematic Position oi ^luropus melanoleucus,'' 

 Mindeskrift tor .Tapetus Steenstrup (1913), art. xvii. 



§ H. Winge, E Museo Lundii, vol. ii. (1896), pt. ii. no. 2, p. 62. 



11 Similar giiawing: of fossil bones has been noticed by R. Lydekkcr, "The Fauna 

 of the Karnul Caves," Pateont. ludica, ser. 10, vol. iv. (1886), p. 25. 



•y E. Ray Lankester, loc. cit. p. 165. 



