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Updated: May 8, 2025
"In the great quadruped known as titanothere," says Osborn, "rudiments of horns first arise independently at certain definite parts of the skull; they arise at first alike in both sexes, or asexually; then they become sexual, or chiefly characteristic of males; then they rapidly evolve in the males while being arrested in development in the females; finally, they become in some of the animals dominant characteristics to which all others bend."
The thorax, like the head of a titanothere, bears three pairs of horns a great irregular expanse of tumbled, rock-like skin and thorn, a foundation for three pairs of long legs, and sheltering somewhere in its heart a thread of ant-life; finally, two little pedicels lead to a rounded abdomen, smaller than the head.
Osborn thinks it probable that the huge beast called titanothere finally became extinct early in Tertiary times owing to the form of its teeth, which were of such a type that they could not change to meet a change in the flora upon which the creature fed.
The huge titanothere, and the small three-toed horse, both existed at what may roughly be called the same period of the world's history, back in the middle of the mammalian age. Both are extinct in the sense that each has completely disappeared and that nothing like either is to be found in the world to-day.
Beyond question, the gun-sellers and gun-users have been busy there, as everywhere else. The game of India is on the toboggan slide, and the old days of abundance have gone forever. The first fact that strikes us in the face is the impending fate of the great Indian rhinoceros, an animal as wonderful as the Titanothere or the Megatherium.
The horns proved of less advantage to the females than to the males; they seem a part of the plus or overflow of the male principle, like the beard in man the badge of masculinity. The titanothere is traceable back to a hornless animal the size of a sheep, and it ended in a horned quadruped nearly as large as an elephant. It flourished in Wyoming in early Tertiary times.
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