Evening star., 1936-08-25
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field,
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

Bands of dog monsters-some of them
probably the biggest and fiercest beasts
of prey that ever lived-trooped over
the Middle West about 30,000,000 years
ago.
One of these dogs, the dinocyon, was
as large as the Kadiak bear Of the
present day and probably looked much
more like bear than any living men,
Der of the canine family. 1t is known
as the bear-dog, although directly re-
lated to neither animal.
Another, the meSocyon, was small, but
may have been more savage. The first
complete skeleton of this animal has just
been unearthed in Nebraska by paleon-
tologists of the Nebraska State Museum
and study of the bones indicates some
possible relationship to the true canine
family, made up of the dogs, wolves, foxes
and hyenaS The actual order of ami
mails to which these dogs belonged, how
ever, has long since vanished from the
earth. Hitherto the family has been
known, for the most part. from scattered
bones from which it was necessary to
reconstruct an entire animal. In this
case only the right legs were missing.
These ancient dogs had very large,
formidable teeth. The probabilities are
that they were largely feeders on car
rion or that they stalked their prey
rather than actually chased it. From
the structure of their legs they appar-
emily were not good runners. Neither,
for that matter, were any of the ancient
animals upon which they fed.
Few archaeological questions are
more in dispute than that of the actual
ancestry of the true dog family, which
was spread all over the world at the
time when man first came on the scene.
1t now is generally supposed that this
ancestry was derived through the wolves.
One of the most remarkable discov-
cries during the year was that of the
titanotylopus, giant camel. The lower
jaw, from which the creature was de-
scribed, measured 26 inches. If other
bones were of comparative dimensions
and they probably were-all living ami
mails of this family would be dwarfs in
comparison with this creature of the
early Pleistocene, whose remains were
found near Red Cloud, Webster County,
Nebr.
This region was about the center of
the great camel distribution in North
America which lasted for more than
100000 years from the beginning of
the Eocene, or dawn age of mammals,
to the coming of the ice sheets. Titano-
tylopus probably represented one of the
closing stages of the development Of
this race in the New World. The camels
started as pygmies. They apparently
originated in North America, emigrated
to South America, where the living llama
stock arose, and to the Old World, where
their descendants still survive.
During the Miocene Age, about 30,-
100000 years ago, they were very abun-
dant and are believed to have roamed
over the plains in great herds, compar-
able with those of the bison of later
times. Remains of several thousand
animals Of one genus-the dainty little
stenomylus or gazelle- e-camel - were
found in one bone quarry near Sioux
City, Nebr.
The type Of camel from which one
extant line can trace its ancestry was
nondeScript creature, no bigger than
sheep. Those lines which progressed to
giganticism were moving toward their
own extinction. With increasing size
went increasing specialization. SO that
when there was major climatic change
seriously affecting the normal food sup