Chlamyphorus, consists, in its hide having probably been covered with a bony coat of armour; varying from three fourths of an inch, to an inch and a half in thickness, and resembling the armour which covers these living inhabitants, of the same warm and sandy regions of South America. Fragments of this armour are represented at Pl. 5, Figs. 12, 13.[1]
A covering of such enormous Weight, would have
been consistent with the general structure of the Megatherium;
its columnar hind-legs and colossal tail, were calculated
to give it due support; and the strength of the loins
and ribs, being very much greater than in the Elephant,
seems to have been necessary for carrying so ponderous a
cuirass as that which we suppose to have covered the
body.[2]
tions, from the three more elongated and flatter claw-bones of the forefoot,
the oblique form of which is peculiarly adapted for digging.
- ↑ The resemblance between some parts of this fossil armour, and of the armour of an Armadillo, (Dasypus Peba) is extended even to the detail of the patterns of the tuberculated compartments into which they are divided, see Pl. 5, Figs. 12, 14. The increase of size in the entire shield is in both cases provided for, by causing the centre of every plate to form a centre of growth, around which the margin receives continual additions, as the increasing bulk of the body requires an increase in the dimensions of the bony case, by which it is invested. Figs. 15,1 16, 17, represent portions of the armour of the head, body, and tail piece of the Chlamyphorus. Figs. 18, 19, represent the manner in which the armour is disposed over the head and anterior part of the body of the Chlamyphorus, and Dasypus Peba. The body of the Megatherium, when covered with its corresponding coat of armour, must in some degree have resembled a tilted wagon.
- ↑ In the Transactions of the Academy of Berlin, 1830, Professor Weiss has published an account of some bones of the Megatherium, discovered near Monte Video, accompanied by several fragments of bony armour. Much of this armour he refers without doubt to the Megatherium; other portions of it, and also many bones from the same district, he assigns to other animals. A similar admixture of bones and armour, derived from more than one species of animal, bearing a bony cuirass, is found in the collection made at several and distant points of the country
