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Updated: May 3, 2025
Among the scanty mammals of the Lower Eocene formation we have the perissodactyle Ungulata represented by Coryphodon, Hyracotherium, and Pliolophus.
A careful observer of animal life, who has long resided in South Africa, explored the interior, and lived in the giraffe country, has assured the Author that the giraffe has powers of locomotion and endurance fully equal to those possessed by any of the other Ungulata of that continent.
But the Cheiroptera are extreme modifications of the Insectivora, just as the Cetacea are extreme modifications of the Carnivorous type; and therefore it is to my mind incredible that monodelphous Insectivora and Carnivora should not have been abundantly developed, along with Ungulata, in the Mesozoic epoch.
Sub-typical Ferae . . . Claws retractile; carnivorous. Natatorial Cetacea. . Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short. Suctorial Glires . . Muzzle lengthened and pointed. Rasorial Ungulata . Crests and other processes on the head. He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the following arrangement:
"There," began Old Mother Nature, "is one of the most beautiful of all my children, and the knowledge that he is beautiful does not spoil him. Lightfoot belongs to the Deer family, as you all know, and this in turn is in the order called Ungulata, which means hoofed." Peter Rabbit abruptly sat up, and his ears stood up like exclamation points.
M. Gaudry has arranged the species of Hyaenidae, Proboscidea, Rhinocerotidae, and Equidae in their order of filiation from their earliest appearance in the Miocene epoch to the present time, and Professor Rütimeyer has drawn up similar schemes for the Oxen and other Ungulata with what, I am disposed to think, is a fair and probable approximation to the order of nature.
However, what we do know of this Upper Eocene Fauna of Europe gives sufficient positive information to enable us to draw some tolerably safe inferences. It has yielded representatives of Insectivora, of Cheiroptera, of Rodentia, of Carnivora, of artiodactyle and perissodactyle Ungulata, and of opossum-like Marsupials.
The Ungulata, or Hoofed Animals, which comprise many varied forms, such as the horse, the tapir, the rhinoceros, the swine, the hippopotamus, the camel, the deer, the sheep, the cow, etc., etc.;
Swainson the suctorial, from a very generally prevalent peculiarity, that of drawing sustenance by suction. The rasorial type comprehends most of the animals which become domesticated and useful to man, as, first, the fowls which give a name to the type, the ungulata, and more particularly the ruminantia, among quadrupeds, and the dog among the ferae.
And when we consider how large a portion of the Tertiary period elapsed before Anchitherium was converted into Equus, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that a large proportion of time anterior to the Tertiary period must have been expended in converting the common stock of the Ungulata into Perissodactyles and Artiodactyles.
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