BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
V o l . 25, p p . 407-410 S e p t e m b e r 15, 1914 PROCEEDINGS OF THE PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY
RESTORATION OP THE WOBLD SERIES OF ELEPHANTS AND MASTODONS 1
BY HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
(Read before the Paleontological Society January 1, 1914)
Under the author’s direction the animal sculptor Mr. Charles R. Knight has been engaged during the past two years on a series of models of the elephants and mastodons to a uniform scale of 1^ inches to the foot, or a one-eighth scale. Three living and three extinct types have been completed, and the series will finally include the ancestral proboscidian stages as far back as Palceomastodon, all to the same scale. The standards of shoulder height of the recent forms are taken from the well known records of Rowland Ward (1907), and the estimates of shoulder height of extinct forms are taken partly from actual skeletons, as in the case of the mastodon and woolly mammoth, and from fore-limb measurements in the case of the imperial mammoth. These heights in descending order are as follows: Imperial mammoth, Elephas imperator, 13 feet 6 inches, estimate of F. A. Lucas. African elephant, Loxodon africanus, 11 feet 8% inches, record of Rowland Ward. Indian elephant, Elephas indicus, 9 feet 10 inches, record of Rowland Ward. Indian elephant, Elephas indicus, 10 feet 6 inches, record of Rowland Ward. Hairy mammoth, Elephas primigenius, 9 feet 6 inches, estimated from skeleton. American mastodon, Mastodon americanuss, 9 feet 6 inches, estimated from skeleton. Pigmy African elephant, Loxodon cyclotis, 6 feet 2 inches, present height of type specimen in New York Zoological Park.
The tusks in each type, which in these models are also record tusks as to length and curvature, are selected as the most generally characteristic in form and curvature or are actual tusks, as in the casé of L. africanus, E. primigenius, and E. imperator. The living forms have been studied by Mr. Knight directly from types in the New York and other zoological parks. They are regarded by experts as excellent models except in the
1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Geological Society June 15, 1914. (407)
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A, American mastodon, Mastodon americanus; B, Imperial mammoth, Elephas imperator; C, Wooly mammoth, Elephas pnmif/enius. Models in the American Museum
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E
F i g u r e 2 .— Restoration of Elephants D, Indian elephant, Elephas indicus ; E, Congo elephant, Loxodon cyclotis ; F, African e lep h an t, Loxodon africanus. Models in the American Museum
proportions of the neck, which are far more massive and powerful than as represented by Mr. Knight in the African bull, for example. The mastodon is drawn very closely on the famous Warren mastodon skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History. The imperial mammoth
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is almost entirely conjectural since the top of the skull has not yet been discovered, and it is not known, therefore, whether the animal had the characteristic peaked cranium of the true mammoth type, or the flattened cranium of the African type, or the bulbous cranium of the Indian type. The hairy mammoth is by far the most probable restoration in the cxtinct series because it is based, first, 011 the complete skeleton, second, on the data furnished by the frozen Siberian mammoth, third, and most important, by the extraordinary likeness which prevails in all the numer ous drawings, engravings, and sculptures of E. printigenius by the artists of TTpper Paleolithic times. In preparing these models we were at once struck by the highly dis tinctive differences in the contour not only of the forehead but of the backbone. The L. cyclotis, for example, while of diminutive size and with rounded ears, has the distinctive backbone profile of the African elephant, which is hollow between the shoulders and the hips. The back bone of the Indian elephant is uniformly arched upward; that of the mammoth rapidly falls away toward the hind quarters, and a similar character is doubtfully attributed to the imperial mammoth. The extraordinary dome over the head of the woolly mammoth, sepa rated by a deep valley from the dome over the back, is probably due to an accumulation of hair and wool and possibly to the presence of a storage reservoir of adipose tissue, because we know that this rounded form does not coincide at all with the peaked, flattened forehead of the skull within. For purposes of casting, the hair, which nearly touches the ground be neath the neck and belly of the mammoth and constitutes a uniform fringe around the lower part of the limbs, is reduced.
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