ARMADILLOS -LIVING AND EXTINCT

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 6692, 9 August 1882, Page 6

ARMADILLOS -LIVING AND EXTINCT

(£*U oM Wafer.) On June 8 last Professor Flower, F.S.S., president of the Zoological Society, delivered the first of the Davis series of lectures for the present year at the Zoological Gardens. The lecturer began by saying that most people had a general idea that an armadillo was a little animal with a shell on its back, but that was about all that was known of it by many. The object of the lecture was to give a more distinct idea of the appearance, structure, and habits of the different'kinds of armadillos and of their relations to other animals. A living example of one of the common species was exhibited on the table, and the others were illustrated by preserved speoimens and diagrams. The name Armadillo was of Spanish origin, and has reference to the most obvious external characteristic of the oreature, which distinguishes it from all othsr mammals. Many reptiles and fish have a bony external covering, but no other mammals, although some may have hard coverings of scales, as the pangolin, of thickened son, at the rhinoceros. The armadillos differ, however, from these in having the external covering composed of plates of true bony tissue embedded in the skin, and covered with a thin layer of homy epidermis. There is always a large dorsal shield or earm<paee, covering the back and hanging over the sides, and which is, in the living species, composed of a solid anterior part covering the shoulders, and a similarly solid hinder part covering the hips, and of a variable number of moveable rings, connected by toft skin, between, whioh allow the animal to curve its body, and in some oases to roll up into a comSlete ball. Besides this, the top of the head as a shield, and the tail and outer aide of the limbs are also covered with plates. The iuuder surface of the body and inside of the limbs are generally smooth and hairy. The limbs are short, but provided with very strong claws, well adapted for scratching and digging. -Their teeth are confined to the side of the mouth, are small and uniform in character, not divided into eanines, molars, 4c., as in moit mammals. In nearly all species there are about eight on each tide, above and below, but in one, the largest of the group (Priodon gigas), there are altogether as many at ninety or one hundred teeth, though *U very small. This is the largest number of teeth known in any land mammal, though exceeded by some cetaceans. The existing species are all of email or moderate site. They are mostly, though nob universally, nocturnal in their habits. They are omnivorous, feeding on roots, insects, worms, reptiles, and carrion. The large species just referred to has the evil reputation of digging into newly-made graves for the purpose of feeding on the corpses contained in them.

They are harmless and inoffensive creatures, offering no resistance when caught, their principal means of escape from their enemies bsing the sxtraorduury rapidity with which they can burrow in the ground, and the tenacity with which they retain their hold in their subterranean retreats. Notwithstanding.the shortness of their legs, they can ran with great rapidity. Most of the species are esteemed good sating, by the natives of the countries in which they live. They are all inhabitants of the open plains or the forests of the tropical and temperate parts of South America, with the .exception of one species (Tatusia peba), which ranges as far north as Texas.

As many h sixteen species of Hying armadillo! are known, grouped into six genera, called Tatueia, JDasyput, Xenuras, Priodon, Tolypeutes, and Ohlamydophorus, the distinguishing eharaoters of which were pointed oat The last it a very, remarkable little animal differing greatly from all the others in the itrnoture of the carapace.

Fossil remaini of the armadillos hare been found by Lund and others»in the carei of Brazil in deposits of the pleiitooene age. Some of them are attributable to genera still existing,, but others are assigned to diitinot modifications of the type called Euryodon, Ohlamydotberium, Sutatus, 4c In the same region, but. still more abundantly in fluviatilo deposits which cover the country in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres,are found the remains of one of the most remarbable forma of mammals yet discovered. The first known example of this group received in 1839 the name of Glyptodon from Professor Owen, and of Hoplophorus from the Danish naturalist Lund, almost simultaneously, but by the former name they are usually known. They differ from the existing armadillos in tboir large sise, and in haying the carapace composed of one solid piece (formed by the onion of a multitude of ■mall dermal scutes), without aaymsrable joints in the middle part, and in having also a ventral piece or plastron. The teeth are eight in number at each side of each jaw, as in most existing armadillos. The vertebral column is almost entirely united into a solid piece, but there is a oomplex joint at the base of the neck to allow the need being retracted within the carapace. The limbs were very strong, and the fees short and broad, re* ■embling externally those of an elephant or tortoise.

The animals to which the armadillos are most nearly related was next considered, and these were shown to be the auteatersand sloths of South America, and, though far more remotely, the pangolins and African anteaters. These altogether constitute the order called Edentata.

In conclusion, allusion was made to the bearing of the facts brought forward in the lecture on the evolutionary hypothesis, which was "shown to offer a satisfactory' explanation of the general similarity of type, underlying muoh external diversity, especially in some curious gradations whieh are pointed out in the structure of the forefeet ef the various genera. On the other hand, beyond the glvptodont of a comparatively recent geological period, palawntology had not hitherto revealed any forms with which the armadillos were nearly related, and from whieh they may be supposed to be directly descended.