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m m m Jr Jr Sr I r Is e Now Able race Hude Creatures ?- Sack .,. to th : T ZJ :$::. - cience ' sm"; Tkrougk Various Changes for 2,000,000 Years audi lBwm Explain Just What Developed tke Huge Tusks anci Caused tke Nose to Keep on Growing Dr. W. H. Ballou. VERYBODY with an Inquiring mind After many thousands of years Lake who has watched the at Moeris, or the swampy overflow of the E the circus or menagerie has won Nile, grew dryer. The dered how this enormous creature came climbed to dry land and grew Into the Into existence; why It has such an exag- , or "very early ," gerated trunk instead of a nose, like other an about the size of a small pony ; why it possesses many other with relatively much larger nose and tusks curious features, and why, with all these than the Moeritherium. one most Stretching out for roots arid peculiarities, it should he of the hisnose 7 , Biggest intelligent of beasts. reaching it upward out of the water for Science has now answered all of these air started it on the way to becoming a All the . questions for us authoritatively. At the trunk. Huge Herds s b J&fr same time it has proved the interesting The Palaeomastodons multiplied' enor- of These fact that America was the world's greatest mously in ancient Egypt in the Lower Lived in prehis- period 1,500,000 years ago. breeding ground of primitive and about North ijHiilKil toric elephants. Fresh confirmation of "After centuries of change at their this Is contained in the following interest- birthplace in Northern Africa," writes Pro- America w. ing announcement just sent out by the fessor Barbour, "their migrations' took American Museum, of Natural History of them throughout Africa, northward into N New York: Europe and the British Isles, into Euro-Asi- a, acquired "The American Museum has India and Siberia, into North Amer- Ann Arbor, a well-know- n from E. L. Troxell, of ica, thence Into South America. collector, the first mountable skel- While eton of a new species of mastodon un- the tusks and trunks were developing in the Tertiary rocks of Northern until they became ponderous during the earthed 5 Texas, where the indications are that mas- ages required for these mutations and Mastodon, Tusks Now in the Pliocene todons of this kind lived migrations, the superficial area Curved Upward, Trunk Age, about 800,000 years ago. The. species of the skull is regarded as a descendant of a race of was also Increasing. Otherwise there More European . In the Western would not have been the extent of surface Developed, Hemisphere, however, the long-Jawe- d mas- necessary for the attachment of muscles todons attained a greater size than did Lower and ligaments to carry ever-increasin- g the European variety. This animal stood the Jaw eight feet high and its hones are very mas- load. sive." ' "At rst the proboscis, or trunk, was Now a This little announcement takes us back smal, but little more than prehensile Lip. age 800,000 years ago and more a to an lip, much when America was overrun with almost like .that of the horse, and used The countless herds of elephants, far more in much the same way to guide food Into ;felPiJB numerous than the buffalo, which were to the mouth. In later types perfection of Modern . swarm later. They became extinct quite specialization was attained by this re- oKvfflB suddenly, and why they did so Is also ex- markable organ. This also added weight Elephant IpBI to the skull." plained. 5 Eubelodon, with a But before studying America as the Note the Interesting fact that weight of Trunk happy home of elephants, it Is interesting tusks and trunk led to increase of brain Rather Longer, Trunk PB to learn how the beast came into existence, space, and hence to growth of intelligence Lower SKkSI evolved and grew up, as the American in the elephants. Jaw Shorter, Twice Museum and the chief American palaeon-tolglst-s When the neck became short, the trunk Only Two Tusks. Long IPWV have traced the srory. had to grow longer. v as Two million years ago the original an- The next distinct form that evolved MH n, as His cestor of the elephants lived in ancient after Palaeomastodon was the Tetrabelo-da- Egypt. Dr. Edwin Hinckley Barbour, the whose name means "four teeth." The Ancestor, fPBIW State geologist of Nebraska, a great au- evidence of the bones indicates that the Tetrabelodon Willis-- thority on prehistoric elephants, says it animal was at one time returning to 4 the was in the Upper geological period, swampy life, for the increasing lower toni, Much Longer Uni- tusks and jaws are adapted to digging in Mammoth, IdaB while Professor R. S. Lull, of Yale Trunk, -- but Lower WS'li versity, places it a little later in the fol- the mud. who lowing period, the Lower Oligocene. "The lower jaw gradually lengthened, Jaw Receding. w'WMm His remains have been found only reaching its extreme length in Tetrabelo-do- n longirostris Was around the ancient Lake Moeris, now dried of the lowe r Pliocene Pliocene period. Fine specimens have 3 up, in lower Egypt. Hence he has been period," says Professor Barbour. "Later Gulch, Nebraska Very the lower jaw length been found in Devil's called the "Moeritherium." . He was about decreased in as the very large, nearly the size of a hound dog, but more like a lower tusks disappeared, while the uppet This animal had Much .. or in appearance; an active, tusks lengthened into the extreme of the straight tusks, showing that they were s well-develope- rooting little beast. He had a d last of the mastodons, Americanus. as much for fighting and teartn Bigger. "The proboscidean used Just 'aHiisHHHgPPnKi2;aVPMMKSMr WmSm nose, but not larger than that of a ancestral had a num- of trees as for digging things pig. His upper canine teeth were fairly ber of teeth, after the manner of typical off branches prominent. , and these were erupted in the from the mud. If grow- - No one would have thought to look at usual way; that is, by new teeth pushing The elephant animals had to in this little beast that he was to become the upward and gradually displacing the old. size and strength In order to hold their As teeth became too large, ancestor of all the mighty elephants and they. were re- own with the carnivorous cat animals, to people the whole world with his descen- duced in matured adults to one large, dants. specialized in each jaw. which were growing at an alarming rate. He was a swamp dweller, Professor Lull "Tusks are incisor teeth, which grow The sabre-toothe- d tiger, a frightfully semi-aquati- from persistent tells us, living upon the succulent c pulps." armed monster as big as a cow, roamed herbage Tetrabelodon lived well-develop- ed that abounded on the all over the world, the jungles of Nebraska. But a edges of the vast tropical lake. This abun- from Egypt, Europe and Asia to America, mastodon could toss a sabre-toot- h dance of food caused successive genera- and especially Nebraska. This was the v iS3-9A'- .".v.".tijfc ..... yy 'lit ". '"JM&H tions of the Moeritherium to grow larger. first proboscidean that began to look like tiger to death with his tusks as easily Digging in the mud caused him to de a genuine elephant He had a long trunk bull tosses a dog. These combats velop a lower jaw to shovel up the and tusks. The latter were at flrat ti,ro naturally increased the Intelligence of the "Ir fodder, while the need of pulling up. fowu for Seeing in the mud, and this surviving animals. Shaped waa m lf Amer- thick roots made his tusks grow "'T" j" ouine species six and one-ha- Eubelodon evolved into Mastodon Lower 2 Palaeo- - longer ana stronger. Thus he feet in length. Intermediate forms icanus, a true mastodon, which looked al- was started on the way to be- between Palaeomastodon and Tetrabelodon most like an elephant, although it was Jaw, mastodon, coming an elephant must have travelled from the Old World smaller and had less top head. The Mas- Longer Trunk vSggMI to America by way of the Arctic land todon usually had upper tusks slightly bridges, and given Nose, Just fllHBb there rise to the second curving upward, very small lower jaw and no lower tusks. He became especially Four Com-- A,7JlerotihlB eIePnant-lik- e creature abundant in the Pleistocene period in Ne- ca Tetrabelodon Willlstoni, because braska about 500,000 years ago. Tusks. mencing. B wmfinS,Wei?.found fay Professor The Mastodon, whose name means JM in Nebraska. It had "toothed beast," survived long after prim- 1 a 2Se,.J0We!:Jaw and IonSer itive man arose in America and elsewhere. the earHo JL He would be alive to-da- y, perhaps. If the After phants were contemporaneous, for 1 Tetrabelodon came Eu-- primitive man had not joined in the chase animal bones are found associated with im- ueiouon. me earHpt and used him not onlv for a meal ticket. plements and pottery, and pictures of fos- of ,Dut . things out of his '.- x modon, still in made clothes and TKwnHh, ' , a Miy; iMnaaam&ma&irzjrzrmL.: - the sil elephants." t...-- fr - 'sidM3KHHHHMHKj?c?- . .m.' t:r,mmL ,nm0i.TiaBBi ikbkimiihh "N. with E"BwHBtfaE:in&Knt. iF'.dmr:r zmx2rvmmazm'.amiw nide. He couia beat ore carnivorous beasts, From the mastodon evolved the mam- but not foxy man with stick-throwe- rs and, moth, the largest land animal that ever Normal perhaps, very .rough bows and arrows. existed. A large specimen stood probably Mouth. An interesting picture Js drawn by Pro- fourteen feet high at the shoulder, was fessor Barbour of the age, extending per- covered with hair as thick as fur, and was haps over a million year, when mastodons so immense that he would have" made a swarmed in Nebraska, along with giraffes modern elephant look like a dog. He was and camels, and evolved Into higher types. a superior elephant, vfor he had a largei Portrait He says: skull and beautifully curved tusks. Thes "AS many as 120 mastodons and wonderful animals were very abundant in Gallery have been found in a single Nehraska down to 25,000 years ago, at swamp. Quite a number have been least. of the taken from blocks of ice and thus We possessed in this country the finest preserved In actual flesh. They type of mammoth, the "Imperial Mam- Elephant's are of world-wid- e distribution moth," concerning which Professor Bar- and have been found in every bour says: Ancestors, quarter of Nebraska. They "Of the mammoths, or true elephants, roamed this country in the most majestic of all, Imper-ato- r from isuch vast herds that (the imperial elephant), with height hey are likened in exceeding thirteen feet, ranged from Ne- Drawings numbers to the bison. braska westward to the Pacific coast, "The question al- southward into Mexico, and flourished by ways rise3, what led during Pleistocene times." to the extermination These animals lived during the glacial Dr. E. H. of such countless hosts period, for which they evolved their thick of gigantic mammals? hair. Barbour. In brief, it may be The existing elephants, which we see in said that climatic the circus and menagerie, are descended changes, 6pread dis- Photo B of from the animals of the Moeritherium H89pHgHHKflHN&lr ease, ravages of pre- stock that remained in Africa and South- BHhB. datory beasts and the ern Asia. There are now two varieties, advent of man are the African and the Asiatic, and they da Profile View of the Palaeomastodon, Which Was the First Ancestor of among the chief not differ greatly. They missed the glacial HHHIIE the Modern Elephant That Showed the Beginning of the Develop- causes of extinction. period, always lived a jungle life, and B The is good reason jumped more rapidly from the Moerithe- ment of a Trunk. This Creature Lived Two Million Years Ago in Egypt IK for believing that man rium to present stage of 'PHB their evolution and Had a Long Flexible Snout. From Reconstruction by Erwin Christman in the American Museum of Natural History. and the fossil ele than the American types. Copyright, 1919, by Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.

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