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Updated: May 26, 2025
The relationship, though distant, between the Macrauchenia and the Guanaco, between the Toxodon and the Capybara, the closer relationship between the many extinct Edentata and the living sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos, now so eminently characteristic of South American zoology, and the still closer relationship between the fossil and living species of Ctenomys and Hydrochaerus, are most interesting facts.
The relationship, though distant, between the Macrauchenia and the Guanaco, between the Toxodon and the Capybara, the closer relationship between the many extinct Edentata and the living sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos, now so eminently characteristic of South American zoology, and the still closer relationship between the fossil and living species of Ctenomys and Hydrochaerus, are most interesting facts.
The last figure to be introduced into this sketch which is not a catalogue is that of the Rhea. Glyptodon, Toxodon, Mylodon, Megatherium, have passed away, leaving no descendants, and only pigmy representatives if any; but among the feathered inhabitants of the pampa the grand archaic ostrich of America survives from a time when there were also giants among the avians.
North of the Bajada, M. d'Orbigny found, in beds which he considers as lying beneath the strata here described, remains of a Toxodon, which he has named as a distinct species from the T. Platensis of the Pampean formation.
In Entre Rios, besides the remains of the Mastodon, Toxodon, Equus, and a great Dasypoid quadruped near St. I heard of bones near the source of the A. Vivoras. Lucia; and Signor Angelis, in a letter, states that a third skeleton of this family has been found, near Canelones. I saw a tooth of the Mastodon from Talas, another affluent of the St. Lucia.
In South America he saw the fossil remains of the Toxodon, and observed, "How wonderful are the different orders, at the present time so well separated, blended together in the different points of the structure of the Toxodon!" All forms of life attracted him.
The remains of the extinct mammiferous animals, from the two gravel beds have been described by Professor Owen in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle':" they consist of, 1st, one nearly perfect head and three fragments of heads of the Megatherium Cuvierii; 2nd, a lower jaw of Megalonyx Jeffersonii; 3rd, lower jaw of Mylodon Darwinii; 4th, fragments of a head of some gigantic Edental quadruped; 5th, an almost entire skeleton of the great Scelidotherium leptocephalum, with most of the bones, including the head, vertebrae, ribs, some of the extremities to the claw- bone, and even, as remarked by Professor Owen, the knee-cap, all nearly in their proper relative positions; 6th, fragments of the jaw and a separate tooth of a Toxodon, belonging either to T. Platensis, or to a second species lately discovered near Buenos Ayres; 7th, a tooth of Equus curvidens; 8th, tooth of a Pachyderm, closely allied to Palaeotherium, of which parts of the head have been lately sent from Buenos Ayres to the British Museum; in all probability this pachyderm is identical with the Macrauchenia Patagonica from Port S. Julian, hereafter to be referred to.
When I found in La Plata the tooth of a horse embedded with the remains of Mastodon, Megatherium, Toxodon, and other extinct monsters, which all co-existed with still living shells at a very late geological period, I was filled with astonishment; for seeing that the horse, since its introduction by the Spaniards into South America, has run wild over the whole country and has increased in numbers at an unparalleled rate, I asked myself what could so recently have exterminated the former horse under conditions of life apparently so favourable.
At Punta Alta in B. Blanca, I remarked how marvellous it was, that the Toxodon, a mammifer so unlike to all known genera, should have co-existed with twenty- three still living marine animals; and now we find that the Macrauchenia, a quadruped only a little less anomalous than the Toxodon, also co-existed with eight other still existing Mollusca: it should, moreover, be borne in mind, that a tooth of a pachydermatous animal was found with the other remains at Punta Alta, which Professor Owen thinks almost certainly belonged to the Macrauchenia.
How wonderfully are the different Orders, at the present time so well separated, blended together in different points of the structure of the Toxodon! The remains of these nine great quadrupeds, and many detached bones, were found embedded on the beach, within the space of about 200 yards square.
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