MAMMALIA. 27 



SuB-OKDEft 2. — Ancylopoda. 



During part of the Miocene and Pliocene periods in Pier-case 9. 

 Europe, Asia and North America, there lived some large 

 three-toed quadrupeds which had grinding teeth much like 

 those of the Titanotheriidae and exhibited many resemblances 

 to the Perissodactyla in general, but differed from all known 

 Ungulata in the peculiar structure of the feet. In these 

 animals the weight of the body when walking seems to have 

 been mainly supported by the outer side of the twisted foot, 

 while the phalanges of each digit curve upwards on highly- 

 developed pulley-joints and end in a cleft, pointed, claw- 

 shaped bone — an arrangement suggesting the name Ancylo- 



Fiq. 16. — View of grinding surface of third right upper true molar tooth 

 of Ghalicotherium sinense, from the Pliocene of China ; nat. size. 

 (Pier-case 9.) 



poda (" curve-feet ") for the sub-order. The feet, indeed, are 

 so much like those of the extinct ground-sloths of America 

 and the existing pangolins (Manis) of the Old World, that 

 the isolated toe-bones were referred to the Edentata until a 

 nearly complete skeleton of one genus (Macrotherium) was 

 found in the Miocene of France. Among the remains 

 exhibited in Pier-case 9, may be particularly noted a toe of 

 Macrotherium from the Middle Miocene of Sansan, France; 

 a toe of Ancylotherium (lacking claw) from the Lower 

 Pliocene of Pikermi, Greece; and teeth of Ghalicotherium 

 (Fig. 16) from the Pliocene of India and China. 



