ANT-EATERS, ARMADILLOS. 337 



aurita), whose range extends from North India to the island of 

 Formosa. Tlie Javan pangolin is a narive of Burmah, the Malay 

 Peninsula, and the larger islands— Java, Eorneo, Sumatra — of the 

 Eastern Archipelago. A limited number of species are known from 

 Western Africa, one of which, M. (Pholidotus) gigantea, measures 

 about five feet in length to the tip of the tail. The most aberrant 

 form of the family is M. (Smutsia) Temminckii, from the southern 

 and eastern portions of the African continent. 



Of the American groups the most restricted in point of numbers 

 are the ant-eaters, whose range, collectively, embraces the greater 

 portion of the Neotropical realm included between Mexico and 

 Paraguay, east of the Cordilleras. The better known species — in- 

 deed, the only species admitted by most authors — are the great ant- 

 eater (Myrmecophaga jubata), the tamandua (Tamandua tetradac- 

 tyla), and the little or two-toed ant-eater (Cycioturus didactylus), 

 whose individual ranges coincide largely with the range of the en- 

 tire family. The sloths, of which some authors recognise not less 

 than a dozen fairly well-marked species or varieties, occupy much 

 the same area as the ant-eaters, although they do not appear to 

 enter Paraguay. They are inhabitants of the forest region, which 

 limits their distribiition. Two genera, founded upon the number 

 of toes on the fore -feet, are generally admitted : Bradypus, the 

 three-toed sloths, and Choloepus, two-toed sloths, both of which 

 are very extensively distributed.* 



The armadillos (Dasypodidro), which comprise nearly twenty 

 clearly defined species, are the most broadly distributed of the 

 American edentates, their range extending from the most northern 

 limits of the Neotropical realm to the fiftieth parallel in Patagonia. 

 A single species, the peba or seven-banded armadillo (Tatusia 

 septemcincta), which is found in South America as far south as 

 Paraguay, enters the United States in Texas. Among the better 

 known species are the six-banded armadillo or encoubert (Dasypus 

 sexcinctus), an inhabitant of Brazil and Paraguay ; the tatouay or 

 cabassou (Xonurus unicinctus), with much the same range as the 

 last, but extending into Guiana ; the three-banded armadillo or 



* Arctopitheons appears to have no distinctive generic charaotera. A 

 specimen of Bradypus tridaetyliis in tlie museum of the Eoyal College of 

 Surgeons, of London, corresponds, according to Professor Flower, with Gray's 

 Arctopitliecus gularis. 



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