United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Falconer, in a memoir which he is now preparing for the press on the European Pliocene and Pleistocene species of the genus Rhinoceros, has shown that, under the above name of R. leptorhinus, three distinct species have been confounded by Cuvier, Owen, and other palaeontologists:
Penultimate molar, one-third of natural size. Elephas meridionalis, Nesti. Penultimate molar, one-third of natural size. Rhinoceros leptorhinus, Cuvier Rhin. megarhinus, Christol; fossil from fresh-water beds of Grays, Essex; penultimate molar, lower jaw, left side; two-thirds of natural size. Rhinoceros tichorhinus; penultimate molar, lower jaw, left side; two-thirds of natural size.
In the fossil fauna of the valley of the Thames, Rhinoceros leptorhinus was mentioned as occurring at Gray's Thurrock with Elephas antiquus. Dr.
R. megarhinus, Christol, being the original and typical R. leptorhinus of Cuvier, founded on Cortesi's Monte Zago cranium, and the ONLY Pliocene, or Pleistocene European species, that had not a nasal septum. Gray's Thurrock, etc.
They indicate a savage life, spent in hunting and fishing. Recent researches give reason to believe that, under low and base grades, the existence of man can be traced back into the tertiary times. He was contemporary with the southern elephant, the rhinoceros leptorhinus, the great hippopotamus, perhaps even in the miocene contemporary with the mastodon.
The Elephas antiquus and its associated Rhinoceros leptorhinus may have preceded the mammoth and tichorhine rhinoceros in the valley of the Thames, or both may have alternately prevailed in the same area in the Pleistocene period.
Word Of The Day