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The Titanotheres were a great family of extinct animals which were dominant throughout a long and very interesting period of geologic time, from lower Eocene to lower Oligocene. The known Titanotheres were confined to a relatively small area near the fortieth parallel in ancient western North America and to Europe and Asia. The fossils of the Titanotheres now collected represent the most complete "evolutionary" series of mammals thus far discovered except that of the horses. In the Titanotheres, we see the growth of a great and vigorous family tree, giving off numerous branches (phyla), which diverge in characters and habits while retaining hereditary resemblances and certain hereditary trends and tendencies of transformation. The transformations of the soft parts can only be inferred. The fossil remains reveal changes in a variety of ways over time, chiefly through a progressive increase in size. The structure of the grinding teeth of the Titanotheres is very different from the grinding teeth of related families, the rhinoceroses, the horses and the tapirs. The Titanotheres nevertheless present certain analogies in the form of the skull. Therefore we may infer that analogies existed in the feeding habits. |
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