SUCCESSIVE MAMMALIAN FAUNAS 



285 



herbivorous marsupials, with very complex grinding teeth and 

 chisel-like incisors, but no carnivorous or insectivorous mem- 

 bers of the order have been found. Insectivora were present. 

 Of the fcreodonts, or primitive flesh-eaters, there were no 

 less than five families; the bear-Uke jArctocyonidse, which 

 died out in the Wasatch, were quite numerous, and the 

 problematical fMesonychidse were much smaller and more 



Fig. 143. — The Torrejon forerunner {^ Pantolatnbda bathmodon) of ^Coryphodon. 

 Restored from a skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History. 



primitive mammals than those of the Eocene. Passing over 

 two famiUes which did not survive the Torrejon, we may note 

 the first of the fMiacidse, the progressive family which led 

 eventually to the true Carnivora. The hoofed animals all 

 belonged to the archaic fCondylarthra and fAmblypoda ; 

 of the former there were many genera and species referable 

 to three families, one of which contained the forerunners of 

 the Wasatch ]Phenacodus. The genus ^Pantolambda of the 

 Amblypoda may well have been ancestral to both the fcory- 

 phodonts and the fuintatheres of the Eocene. 



