File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17539653583).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE SOUTH AFRICAN FOSSIL REPTILES By Robert Broom M ANY of the specimens in the Broom Collection of South African fossil reptiles are of special importance to the student inves- tigating the deep problems of evolution and comparative anatomy, hut others are of the greatest interest to the general public as they throw- much light on the past life of the world and on the struggles of the ani- mals for existence in these remote ages. The animal life of the Karroo forma- tion will be better under- stood by considering the principal types living at three different periods. The first fauna which we consider may be called the Pareidsaurus fauna and it lived about seven- teen million years ago. The huge Pareiasaurus was a heavily-built slow- moving animal rather larger than a half-grown hippopotamus and prob- ably as sluggish in its movements as the large tortoises of the Galapa- gos Islands. Certainly it was a plant-eating ani- mal and being compara- tively helpless against its carnivorous enemies it probably protected itself by digging into the sandy and muddy banks after the manner of the Aus- tralian porcupine ant- eater. This we infer from the fact that it had powerful dig- ging claws on the front toes and that the back was protected by a number of bony plates. Along with Pareiasaurus there was another group of plant-eating animals, some of them even larger than Pareia-
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Shoulder girdles and front limbs of a very large Dinocepha- lian, Tapinocephalus atherslonei Owen, from South Africa, now in the possession of the American Museum 139

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