14 

 CONEPATUS MAPURITO, Coues ex Gin.* 



Mephitis (Thiosmus) mesoleucus, LiCHT., and most late authors. 



In the following description, reference is had to the same parts of M. 



me]jMtica, to which all expressions of comparison apply. The account is 



1881 

 based mainly upon No. -— — Mus. Smiths. Inst., from Texas, but several 



other specimens are examined at the same time. 



Viewed from above, the muzzle is notably tapering — decidedly more 

 so than in M. mephitica, though the calibre at the base of the zygomata 

 is even greater. The nasal aperture is much less foreshortened in this 

 view. Supraorbital processes are barely, or not at all, recognizable; 

 the prongs of the sagittal crest are faintly indicated or entirely inap- 

 preciable. The point of greatest constriction of the skull (about mid- 

 way between muzzle and occiput) is well marked and abrupt ; the skull 

 immediately swelling behind it, forming a decided projection into the 

 temporal fossa, hardly or not seen in M. mepMtica. The cranial dome is 

 rather higher and fuller. The zygomatic arches are comparatively 

 shorter, more divergent, and more regularly curved. In profile, the differ- 

 ences are more striking. The highest part of the skull is back over the 

 cranial dome, not at the interorbital space ) the slope is but slight thence 

 to the occipital protuberance, but is long and regular from the same spot 

 to the incisor teeth ; for so great is the obliquity of the nasal orifice 

 that the end of the muzzle comes into this general curve, instead of 

 rising, with slight obliquity, from the teeth to then bend abruptly 

 backward at an angle. None of the specimens, unluckily, are young 

 enough to show the nasal sutures; but I have no doubt that these bones, 

 if not also the neighboring part of the maxillaries and intermaxil- 

 laries, will be found to afford good characters. The anteorbital foramen 

 (as in other species, sometimes subdivided into several separate canals) 

 is farther forward and higher up, piercing a thicker zj'gomatic root, and 

 consequently being rather a tube than a hole. The zygomatic bones 

 are slenderer and less laminar than in Mephitis. The arch, as a whole, 

 is shorter and more anterior; in skulls of the same length laid together, 

 the back roots of the arch in Conepatus fall in advance of the other when 

 the muzzles are together. Viewed from behind, the occipital surface is 

 much higher and narrower: thus the distance from the bottom of the 

 foramen magnum to the occipital protuberance is greater than the inter- 

 paroccipital width; in MejMtis, it is., if anything, less. Beneath, the 

 palate is seen to end some distance back of a line drawn across behind 

 the molars; the pterygoids and contained interspace are correspondingly 

 shorter than in MepJdtis, in which the palate ends more nearly opposite 

 the back molars. The edge of the palatal shelf is simply transverse in 

 some specimens, while in others it shows a little median process back- 

 ward, and we may presume that in other cases it is nicked, for all this 

 variation is now well known to occur in both Mephitis and Spilogale. 



The lower jaw gives excellent characters. The angle of the mandible 

 is strongly exflected and the emargination between this and the condyle 

 is slight. The coronoid process rises with considerable backward 

 obliquity, with a very convex anterior border, and concave posterior one, 

 carrying the apex of the bone backward to a point nearly or directly 

 over the condyle. 



*Vivtrra mapurito, Gm., Syst. Nat., i, 1788, p. 88. 



