THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 


Vor. XXXIX. July, 1905. No. 463. 

RESTORATION OF THE TITANOTHERE 
MEGACEROPS. 
RICHARD S. LULL. 
IN A recent study of a fine specimen of Megacerops discov- 
ered in the Bad Lands of South Dakota by an expedition from 
Amherst College, the author was impressed by several features 
which suggested a somewhat radical departure from the gener- 
ally accepted restorations of these remarkable animals. The 
accompanying photograph from a model by the author aims to 
express his conception of the creature in the flesh. 
The Amherst specimen was found in the Titanothere (White 
River) Beds about thirty-five feet above their base, in a place 
where practically all of the one hundred and eighty feet of the 
deposits were exposed. Hence it is reasonable to suppose 
that the remains represent a species not very primitive, nor yet 
showing the extreme of specialization exhibited by later forms, 
in other words a fairly typical titanothere. 
The creature was of adult stature, though the vertebral 
epiphyses had not coössified with their centra ; but, as Marsh 
has shown, this feature, which one also finds in the elephants, 
implies the late maturity which is correlated with huge size. 
419 
