MEGATHERIUM. 



427 



stripped off the small branches of the trees its colossal 

 strength enabled it to prostrate. The dentition of Mylodon 

 differed from that of Megatherium only in the shape of the 

 teeth. The same may be said of the allied genera Megalonyx 

 and Scelidotherium : the former is re- 

 markable for the expanse of its heel- 

 bone, the latter for the breadth of its 

 thigh-bone. They were all contem- 

 porary and locally associated genera of 

 the same extinct family of great ter- 

 restrial sloths. 



In like manner, the small loricated 

 and banded quadrupeds of South Ame- 

 rica, called armadillos, were represented 

 in pleistocene times in that continent 

 by as well-defended species, rivalling 

 the Megatherioids in bulk. The speci- 

 men of the almost entire skeleton and 

 bony armour (fig. 169) is of one of the 

 smaller species of these great extinct 

 n'on-banded armadillos ; yet it measures 

 from the snout to the end of the tail, 



11 . ^ Lower jaw and teeth of 



following the curve OI the back, 9 feet ; Megatherium (Pleistocene, 



the tesselated trunk-armour being 5 feet ou menca > 



in length and 7 feet across, following the curve at the middle 

 of the back. These large extinct species differ from the 

 modern armadillos, in having no bands or joints in their coat 

 of mail, for the purpose of contracting or bending the body 

 into the form of a ball. They also differ in the fluted form 

 of the teeth (fig. 170); whence the generic name (Glypto- 

 don) assigned to them. The species are distinguished, like 

 their present puny representatives (Dasypus), by peculiar 

 patterns of the outer surface of the constituent ossicles of 

 the tesselated mail. In those of the species figured (G. cla- 



