F. B. Loomis — New Genus of Peccaries. 381 



Art. XLI. — A New Genus of Peccaries; by F. B. Loomis. 



Since tlieir introduction into North America in the Oligo- 

 cene tlie peccaries liave never been an abundant group, but 

 have nevertlieless held tlieir own and progressed steadily though 

 slowly toward their present structure. During the summer of 

 1908 the Amherst party found in the " breaks " about two 

 miles southeast of the Raw Hide Buttes in Converse Co., 

 Wyo., and in the sandstones of the Upper Harrison beds, the 

 skull (lacking the brain case) and lower jaws of a peccary 

 which is intermediate in development between Desmathyus of 

 the Rosebud formation and the modern peccary, Tayassu. 

 The specimen is No. 2047 in the Amherst College Museum 

 and includes the muzzle in lower jaws, the dentition being com- 

 plete except that upper incisor 1 and premolar 1 are wanting. 

 The individual is old and the teeth well worn. The new form 

 differs from the earlier genera and Desmathyus in having but 

 3/3 premolars, and is distinct from the modern type in that the 

 third incisor is still retained ; though the incisor series has 

 already begun to assume modern character, in that the first 

 incisor is gi-eatly enlarged. With this form it will be seen in 

 the table on page 384 that the sei'ies of peccaries is very nearly 

 a perfect one. 



Pediohyus ferus gen. et sp. nov. 



The muzzle is moderately high with a straight or slightly 

 convex upper boundary inclosing an ample olfactory chamber 

 very like that of the modern peccary. The opening of the 

 infraoi'bital foramen is well back, lying just over the front of 

 the first molar. The alveolus for the up\per canine is greatly 

 swollen on the outside into a rough projecting tubercle. In 

 front of this there is a correspondingly deep pit for the recep- 

 tion of the lower canine. 



The first upper incisor is wanting but the greatly enlarged 

 alveolus shows that it was of the modern type, broad and elon- 

 gated, and two to three times the size of the other incisors. 

 Incisor 2 is less than half the size of the first, and has a simple 

 blunt wedge-shaped crown. The third, incisor is still smaller 

 but by no means vestigial. Between it and the canine is a gap 

 of some 20"™, which represents the width of the pit for the 

 lower canine. The upper canine is a powerful tooth but 

 slightly bent backward, and approximately oval in cross sec- 

 tion. The anterior face is beveled off with wear. It is hard 

 to say what caused the wear as the tooth does not meet the 

 lower canine, but use must have ground the major part of the 

 tooth away. 



