St. Landry democrat., 1894-02-03
TALLEST EXTANT ANIMAL.
Male Giraffes Have Reached a Height
of Eighteen Feet.

| VI Il cCb
Compared with their extinct allies of
earlier periods of the earth's history, it
may be laid down as geneaal rule that
| the large animals of the present day are
! decidedly inferior in point of size. Dnr-
ing the latter portion of the territorial
period, for instance, before the incoming
of the glacial epoch, when mammals ap-
pear to have attained their maximum de-
veIopment, there lived elephants along
side Of which ordinary individuals of the
existing species would have looked al
most dwarfs, while the cave bear and
the cave hycna attained considerably
larger dimensions than their living rep
rcsentatiyes, and some of the sable
t0othed tigers most have been consider
ably larger than the biggest African or
Bengal lion. Again, the remains of red
deer, bison, and wild oxen disntcrred from
the caverns and other surtcial deposits
Of tins country indicate animals far
superior in size to their degenerate de-
sccndants of the present day, while some
of the extinct pigs from the Siwalik
Hills of northern India might be COM
pared in stature to Il tapir rather than
to an ordinary wild boar. The same
story is told of reptiles, the giant tor
toisc Of the Siwallk Hills, in spite of its
dimensions having been considerably
exaggerated, greatly exceeding in size
the largest living giant tortoises of either
the Mascarene or the Galapagos Islands.
The latter rocks have also yielded the
remains of a long shouted crocodile, al
lied to the gavial of the Ganges, which
probably measured from fifty to sixty
feet in length, whereas it is very doubt
full it any existing member of the order
exceeds half the smaller of these dimen-
sions. If, moreover we took into ac-
count totally extinct types, such as the
mcgathercs and mylodOns of South
America, and contrasting them with
their nearest living allies-in this in
stance the sloths and anteaters-the dis
crepancy in size would be still more
marked, but such a comparison would
scarcely be analogous to the above.
To every rule there is, however, an
exception, and there are few groups of
living large mammals whose existing
members appear never to have been sur
passed in size by their fossil relatives.
Foremost among these are the whales,
which now appear to include the largest
members of the order which have ever
existed. The so-called white or square
mOuthed rhinoceros of South Africa
seems also to be fully equal in size to any
of its extinct ancestors; and the same is
certainly true of the giraffe, which may
even exceed all its predecessors in this
respect. Whether, however, the fossil
giraIics, of which more anon, were or
were not the equals in height of the
largest individuals of the living species
there is no question but that the latter is
by far the tallest of all living mammals,
and that it was only rivalled in this re-
spect among extinct forms by its afore
said ancestors. Moreover, if we exclude
creatures like some of the gigantic
dinosaurian reptiles of the secondary
epoch, which, SO to speak, gained all
unfair advantage as regards height by
sitting on their hind legs in a kangaroo
like manner, and limit our comparison
to such as walk on all four feet in the
good old fashioned way, we shall find
that gratfcs are not only the tallest MAN.
mails, but likewise the tallest of all ami
mails that have ever existed.
AS regards the height attained by the
male of the tallest of quadrupeds, there
is, unfortunately, a lack OF accurate in
formation, and since it is probable that
the ma Ority of those now living are in
ferior in size to the largest individuals
which existed when the species was far
more numerous than at present, it is to
be feared that this deficiency in our
knowledge is not very likely to be rem
cdied. BY some writers the height of the
male giraffe is given at sixteen feet, and
that of the female at fourteen feet, but |
this is certainly below the reality. For
Mr.. II. A. Dryden states that
female he shot in Southern Africa
measured seventeen feet to the SUBMITS
Of the horns. From the evidence of a
very large though badly preserved speci-
men in the Natural History Museum it |
nay, however. be inferred that fine |
males certainly reach the imposing
height Of eighteen feet knowledge. |