Page:Mammalia (Beddard).djvu/199

 5.1, with a large intestine of no less than 7 feet; D. vellerosus 4.3 and .66.

Priodon is the giant of its race. This Armadillo may reach a length of 3 feet to the base of the tail. The tail is some 20 inches long. The large number of teeth has been already noticed. There are twelve or thirteen bands. Other points in the structure of this genus have already been mentioned, and need not be recapitulated. This Armadillo feeds upon termites and carrion.

Scleropleura is unfortunately but imperfectly known. The single species, named by Milne-Edwards S. bruneti, is apparently a very rare inhabitant of Brazil. It is known by a single skin, which was tanned by the hunter who obtained it. Thus the hair, if any, has dropped out. The plates in the skin are deficient along the back and even upon the top of the head, and are barely represented upon the tail posteriorly. The ears are small and distant from each other. The tail is longish, about one-third of the length of the body. The total length of the creature including the tail is rather more than a foot and a half. The hunter who obtained it regarded it as a hybrid between an Armadillo and an Anteater.

Extinct Xenarthra.—There are a good many extinct forms of Armadillo, apart of course from the Glyptodons. Peltephilus is referred to later (p. 186). Dasypus was represented by a large form, 6 feet long, with a skull of one foot in length. The genus Eutatus was also large. The carapace was formed of thirty-three distinct bands, of which the last twelve are soldered together, but not fused into a shield as in Dasypus, etc.

An extinct group of American Edentates, termed the, are somewhat intermediate between the Sloths and the Anteaters. A number of the genera are well known from complete skeletons.

One of the typical forms of this group is Mylodon, which, together with its immediate allies, is often placed in a separate family, Mylodontidae.

Mylodon itself was a large creature, as big as a Rhinoceros. It was covered externally by armour in the skin, which did not form a massive armature as in the Glyptodonts, but was in the