File:The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America (1910) (17918618626).jpg

Title: The age of mammals in Europe, Asia and North America
Identifier: ageofmammalsineu00osbo (find matches)
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935
Subjects: Mammals, Fossil; Paleontology
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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OLIGOCENE OF EUROPE, NORTH AFRICA, AND NORTH AMERICA 201 Africa, Asia, and South America, also to tlie life of Eocene-Oligocene Europe. This assemblage, however, presents more contrasts than resem- blances to the mammalian life which existed in Lower Oligocene times on the north shores of the Mediterranean, as displayed in the phos- phorites of Quercy. The resemblances consist in the presence of small myomorph rodents (Phiomys, Metaphiomys),^ and a great variety of car- nivorous creodonts be- longing exclusively to the family Hysenodon- tidae, including the three principal genera Hywnodon, Pterodon, Apterodon, also found in France. Among the even-toed ungulates, or artiodactyls, we find in northern Africa, as in Europe, several ancodonts or hyopo- tamids (Ancodus, Brachyodus); the aber- rant Rhagatherium of North Africa is also found in Switzerland; there are large mam- mals (Geniohyus) re- sembling the European suillines in their denti- tion, and very diminutive forms (Apidium) resembling remotely Acotherulum and Cebochoenis of France. The very striking point of contrast with the neighboring peninsula of Europe is the absence of perissodactyls, of tapirs, horses, and rhinoce- roses of all kinds. Neither are there any higher types of selenodont artiodactyls such as we might consider as ancestral forms of the great ruminant fauna of modern Africa. This would appear to strengthen the ' Osborn, H. F., New Fossil Mammals from the Fayftm Oligocene, Egypt. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. XXIV, Art. xvi, Mar. 25, 1908, pp. 205-272.
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 90. — The al)eriaiit- rhinoccros-liki' ungulate Arsino'i- therium attacked by the carnivorous creodont Pterodon. (Oligocene of the Fayum, Egypt.) After original by Charles R. Knight in the American Museum of Natural History.

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