THE EOCENE PERIOD. 237 



unspecialized insectivores. These views are chiefly valuable for their 

 suggestiveness. The creodonts ranged throughout the whole period and 

 passed into the next, gradually giving way meanwhile to their own more 

 progressive offspring. They were common in America and in Europe, 

 and there is evidence that they lived also in South America. The spe- 

 cial modes of divergence of the present families is yet largely undeter- 

 mined. There were anticipatory forms in the basal Eocene, but the 

 modern types only began to emerge definitely toward the end of the 

 period. Patriofelis, "the father of cats/' a name not to be taken too 



Fig. 431a. — Mounted skeleton of Patriofelis, a Creodont from the middle Eocene 

 of Wyoming; T ' g natural size. (After Osborn.) 



literally, of the Bridger epoch, presented a suggestive combination of 

 characters, some features resembling those of the Felidce and others 

 those of the seals. Some species seem to have been aquatic. Primi- 

 tive representatives of the dog family (Canidcc), thought to be descend- 

 ants of the Provivera branch of the creodonts, appeared in Europe 

 in the late Eocene period. The Mustelidcc (otters, badgers, and weasels) 

 and the Viverridce (civets, ichneumons, and their allies) appear to have 

 had a common ancestral form in the early Eocene, and to have diverged 

 in the later portion. There were ancestral weasels in the latter part of 

 the period, as well as primitive viverroids. The ancestral hyenas ap- 

 peared about the same time in Europe and Asia. The cat family had 

 a forerunner in Eusmilus of the Upper Eocene of France, though but 



