File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18157211232).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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RELATIVE SIZE OF ALLIED SOUTH AFRICAN REPTILES Dicynodon whaitsi Broom and Diictodon galeops Broom. The skull of one of the largest forms of Dicynodon and of one of the smallest allied forms. This specimen of Dicynodon whaitsi is a female in which the tusk does not project but it is present in the specimen deeply embedded in the bone Formerly all those specimens of dicynodont reptiles in which there was no manifest tusk were placed in the genus Oudenodon. Oudenodon was also placed by Owen in a distinct family. For years the question was debated by all workers on South African reptiles whether Oudenodon might not be tne female of Dicynodon and all have concluded that the evidence seemed rather to favor their being dis- tinct forms No known specimen of Oudenodon sufficiently resembled any known specimen of Dicynodon to be manifestly the female of that species. Within recent years however it has become quite certain that Oudenodon is the female of the tusked Dicynodon. In at least three species of Dicy- nodon we have a manifest series of tusked and tuskless specimens and the same also occurs in other closely allied genera. In some species there is a rudimentary tusk, in others apparently no trace ot tusk, while just possibly in some of the larger forms, such as Dicynodon (Kannemeyena), most proba- bly the female is also tusked . • Exactly what the function of the tusk may have been is unknown. Many suggestions have been made which are manifestly incorrect. Pretty certainly the tusks have nothing to <^with the pro- curing of food as the females in which they are absent doubtless got on as satisfactory Probably they were in Dicynodon at least, secondary sexual characters like the spur in the duck-billed platypus 343

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