On the osteology of the genus Glyptodon / by Thomas H. Huxley.

  • Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the osteology of the genus Glyptodon / by Thomas H. Huxley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    might have belonged to an animal nearly allied to the Armadillos, or perhaps even to a very large, probably extinct, species of Dasypus. The fossil bones are too few to afford a safe foundation for so decided an opinion respecting the zoological affinities of the animal. A tolerably perfect skeleton is necessary in order to enable us, from the bones alone, to draw a safe conclusion as to the structure of the remainder of an animal.” Singularly enough, D’Alton does not mention the Megatherium throughout this paper, which however affords, by implication, an ample demonstration that the bony armour described has nothing to do with that animal*. In 1836, Laurillard, in editing the eighth volume of the second edition of Cuvier’s 4 Ossemens Fossiles,’ appends the following note to the letter of Don D. Laranaga, quoted above:— “ It is very possible that the Megatherium was, in fact, covered by a scaly cuirass; but the great fragments which have been found must not be hastily attributed to it; for the plaster casts sent from London f prove that an Armadillo of gigantic size coexists with the Megatherium on the plains of Buenos Ayres. These characteristic fragments consist of a calcaneum, an astragalus, and a scaphoid, which depart from those of existing Armadillos only in size, and by purely specific differences.” In 1836. then, it was clearly made out that the cuirassed extinct animal of South America is not the Megatherium and is allied to the Armadillos. However, Dr. Buckland, whose Bridgewater Treatise appeared in this year, and who therefore could hardly have been acquainted with the views of D’Alton and of Laurillard, still associated the dermal armour with the Megatherium—supporting his views by an elaborate and inge- nious teleological argument, which, like most reasonings of the kind, appeared highly satisfactory. But, in 1837, all further doubt upon the subject was removed by the dis- coveries of Dr. Lund, who, in that year, despatched to Copenhagen the second of the remarkable series of memoirs in which he reconstructed the ancient Fauna of Brazil J. In this paper Dr. Lund established the genus Hoplophorus upon the dermal armour and certain bones of an edentate quadruped closely allied to, if not identical with, the “ Dasypus ” of Laranaga. Hoplophorus eup hr actus, the sole species of the new genus described in the memoir, was estimated by its discoverer to be of the size of an ox, and to have been provided with a carapace most nearly resembling that of Tolypeutes, but of an astonishing thick- ness. The extremities are said to have the general structure of those of the Armadillos, * Thus MUller says in his memoir on the hind foot, cited below, “ In der letzten Abhandlung ist von Herrn D’Alton bewiesen, dass der Panzer nicht dem Megatherium angehort.” t Vide supra, p. 32. Mr. Pentland appears to have been led to the same opinion by the examination of these casts in 1835. See Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. vi. ser. 2nd, p. 85, and Mr. Pentland’s letter to M. Arago in the ‘ Comptes Eendus’ for March 11, 1839. 1 “ Blik paa Brasiliens Dyreverden for sidste Jordomvseltning. Anden Afhandling: Patte dyrene. Lagoa Santa, 16de Novbr. 1837,” published in ‘ Det Kongelige DanskeVidenskabernes Selskabs Xaturvidenskabelige og Mathematiske Afhandlingar,’ Ottende Deck 1841, p. 70. A notice of Lund’s labours, containing the names of his genera, is to be found in the ‘Oversigt over det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Fordhandlingar i Aaret 1838,’ published by Orsted, the Secretary of the Academy.