The Washington times. [volume], October 17, 1920, FINAL EDITION, Page 6, Image 37

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

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&ienoi
Faher
150
A Ramk tisOf the Ce
of *0Cet.Md
-'"a eci
- tWah
- asoma se w ro.
s Ot . . ,. tf .,. ,.
-woam "move . e C' cae ret athes,
How the Gentle
from a Vic
c
How the 'Prehisterie Cat Was a Moaster
Feet TallM the Ansesters of Man
Ony Pygmaes.
By Dr. W. H. Ba
RE remote ancestor of all the cats
gentle little house cats, fence-roaming
Toms, vociferous barnyard Romeos,,
blue-ribbon winners, and just cats-has
fbeen found petrified out in Colorado. He
is fifteen million years old and so the kind
of petrification Is at once made plain. A
five-year study of him and the evidence
that he carried about with him of his
habits recalls ,the opening lines of Lang
don Smith's great poem, "Evolution":
When you were a tadpole and I was a fish,
in the Paleeoolc time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooe and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.
It recalls them because during the ages
between the time that the petrified Colo
.rado Tom yoamed about Colorado and to
da y when us furry descendants sit so pon
tentedly at his or her charming mistress's
feet, a change has occurred between cat
and man as great as between the tadpole
and fish of Langdon Smith's poem and
mnan end woman.,
in those days of the ancestor of the cats
was a dinosaur, about 25 feet long and 12
feet high. Science has christened him
Ceratosaurus, with the accent on the rat.
I1t looked exactly like the reconstruction
shown on thin page. and it was about the
"fiercest, most cantankerous and devilish
creation of its time-and that time was
one which contained nIo striking examples
of meekness or gentleness of any kind.
The ancestor of man just then was kept
- tusy keeping out of its way. Just what
our ancestor looked like fifteen million
years ago we do not know.
But five million years ago he was, evplu
tionists believe, somewhat like the lite
Tarsius whose picture you see at the top
of the page in its exact proportices as
compared with the first cat.
In the meantime. during the ten million
years that had pensed. Ceratosaurus had
-handed down through a long line of de
'wcendants most of his skeleton. He had
changed into a ferocious eat to which
*setence has given the name Ofysena
Lupine, because of the hyena and wolf-.
like lines of itt body. This great feline,
* he first large carnivore of which we have
fospil knowledge, contained all the fere
city of its dinosaur ancestor, and it was
lucky for mnan that his ancestor was then
as small and as quick as he was and
rebld climb trees, because he would never
Shave been able. to battle with this beast.
*But the tailed fathers of man were then
prowing around, mostly at night, and
feeding on insects. This night habit and
diminutive sine kept them fairly safe from
battles with such monsters.
Nevertheless, during this time there
was inculcated in him a wholesome fear
of the big carnivores, as well as the great
snakes which he eneountered in the trees.
and this fear he handed down to his suo.
cessors, so that when several lines of men
and apes radiated from him fear of the
cats and snake. was well established. The
Oxyaena had, by the way, almost the dino
.ae tail-that is, it was large where It
Finds
oFhe(
DO9OO(
T0 QId.
nw Old
aand Furr
a. re the
of. Toernca-Alo
Little HosCat
Pious, Predatory A
While Our T
and Furry
Ancestors We
Growing Up
Into Men anc
'5 Woiren
ge
earer esthe repti
than iN the craium
of modern cats. Also,
by the way, the cat
skull in the Cloaest ap -
preach to the reptile
skull of any of the
mammals.
HoW, most people
will ask, was this
creature aunally do
mesticated and made
more or learn the slave
of man? Without go
ng Into the curious
character of the cat.
which make it the
most Independent of
our so-called pets, and
evieoc tat it posve
as, "freal toued bute
fathetilloanoabsolctey
wild retue wh ihs
feou mane believea
tat i is aet, le ts WhmeudTh
nrot thCe, te r
oingut enuologist, considehereted
thist surou quenoeon nw s"a
real robs la i. Ti ctfa"i e
mark a s itosrsy smepol
wl,"he enabld tekn owta a
as, been near fe- huhtwnyfu
fathernto dypomsofcate fa"
feand duce itin sz sof h ett
asre the camtom in ithe emot Tcae
"Fear o as
eicr Mitchell h fd tatalhs-a
indinguishabneuoistia ineet but
teogne a thoeaworetm ofsak.
moat fearious penomenon knowever recg
nfer is an clras Tuch. he fer"ispton
ofrkabl iioyncayth ofrsous phyopla
Ithih eletemat to nowri that affca
vha s beno nar ehoenq theouaur tnc-fu
hors ave psed.e nTwhe ca snrvital
resceng as mltougho unern, bThs
attenua ht enms itfvity far" pe-a
armnauserhacoldsprairatio ncssr to
Drfales pahitonofey mheaocati.Tee
car all sypalto of the tintaled
fear. enptetyatwr etrn
Cetoaru Micetorngha mall tian
nisethes a perfecta selet. aThe prto
todr, an whteaIkf e ai su rvival
...
Grew Down
Ions ter
iny, Tailed
That Thi. Charming Lady and -the Pretty '
the Two Curious Creatmwss Shewn at the Top
Is Just -What Evolutiunists Say Happened
sise, of plaiter or papier mache, exactly
as the animal looked in ,life.
Don't imagine that restoratipn of a rep
tile that has been dead fifteen or twenty
million years can be done in the samn
time or way that a sculptor would proceed
to make a stathe from lif. In the first
place, one mnay have to excavate for year.
and over a large area to iet the other
bones that go witha the skull found in the
first instance. EVenu parts of, the skull
may be widpely separated. One must be
sure not to0 mix any of Uie bones of other
extinct Apeeles with those one is trying
to put together.
Also, the bones have been hardened like
concrete by tho~hands of toes of pressure
of ro~ts during mnillions of years. If in
the end all oft tile bones have not been
found and separated from the matrix of
rock other skeletvns of theq same specie.
must be fou# or, at least, parts of them,
to see whats th(4 qilising bones look like
and how thEdy werd joined toeach other.
If, finally, any parts are st missing, you
must sketch and fill in thaeee by use of
your' best wits. bhading such substitution
so that all may kuoy~ which was found
and which was imagised,
Di, Gilmore tells ,s that he has re
*tored a "fairly complet. articulated skele
ton," meaning that the bones were joined
as in nature, and that they were found in
the Upper Jurassic rooks ini Garden Park,
Colorado.
He would not tell you that Ceretosaurus
wa.. the ancestnr of mod~en feronios. at.
The Ameester of the Cats FIvs
Years Age When It Had Grewa
Had Uadergoue Certala Other
The Dimoeaur Tail Is Still Evide.
le from a Palattag by the Famme
Charles R. Knight, Just Cempletei
American Museum of Natural i
New York City. The Prisaib
Is' Shom Devouring On. of ti
Amsesters of All the Hera
but he goes on
and models his
dnarein such
an atit~dethat
with a few touch
es It could be
converted into a
modern puma, or
panther, devour
ing it prey. And
as you work out
the technique of
his scientific de
scription of the
reptile into plain
' jlish you know
that you have
been studying the
first attempts of
nature to Orect a
cat.
abb She Hoelds Came Note that the
f ~is Page? But That tail of ceratosaur
us is very large
at the north end,
that t he body
tapers into it, itstead of its being at
tached to the body in appearance, as in
modern animals. The modification of h Ia
t ail alone would require several millions
of years. What was left of his snout horr.
was probably inherited from Tetracers
tops, a small horned pre-reptile of a group
called Pelycosaurs, of the fermo-Carbonif
erous era, millions of years before his
time. These were water animals, ca
nivores that neededi a horn on the snout
to dive under their prey and ram it. They
at last got out on land where fieah was to
be had for the taking with their sharp
tooth and claws. The horn became a nuis
ance and some lines of their descendants
worked to get rid of it. Ceratosaurus was
on this line. He had the largest brain of
all dinosaurs, big enough to vision prowl
ing in wood and field on four legs with'
ability to capture fleet animals and devour
them. *
Food had much to do with the evolu
tionary modifications bywhich the rep
tiles of the pat merge into the animale
of the present day. Sexual attraction,
however, was an even more potent factor.
E~vpry animnal that qsts, male and fe
male, from ,the lords lion down to the
crawling snake, pi1ks up to the best of
-its ability inles the eye of its mate.
Thsthe Jo h was tickled to death
*ethe apanese succeeded in making
him several gorgeous tails in place of on'.
What has been done for the stallion with
a curry-comb and clippers he has utilisedl
tinrase= his speed andt hance his bhany
F.r and
Changes.
a This
Painier
fer the *\
story 13
Ive Cat
he Smell
es.
The First Cat to B. Donmstica
Huating Pet of the Mer
in the eye of his mates. You maight say
that the domestic porker does not prink
up. That is because it is fed and fattened
to infinite lasiness. The wild hog, even
our rasor-back, prinks up just like other
mammals in its forest faatnesses.
Ceratosaurus got his name because he
wasn a lisard with ceratin, or horn-like sub
stance on the top of his nose. He was also
a typical Theropod, bSYhause he walked on
his toes. He had short fore legs and long
hind legs and sharp cutting teeth. These
are characteristics of many mammals to
day. The lunger the hind legs of a horse
the weightier his kick and the more his
pushng owe beindfor speed. The long
hindleg ofthekangaroo make for hi.
sixty miles an hour. Our savage cats.
same as Ceratosaurus, specialise in abort
er, stouter fore legs to give weightlto a
blow of a paw, and longer hind legs with
more massive hips to hit the ground more
firmly, dig in with the claws and puan
harder in bursts of speed of pursuit or for
In 9j07 Charles li. Fitch, walking on his
brother's ranch near Canon City, Colorado,
stumbled on what be supposed was a sec
tion of a petrified tree at the base of a
high sandstone cliff. The find was placed
on exhibition at a local newspaper office.
Professor Mudge, then State Geologist of
Kansas, later visiting there, saw the speci
men and recognised in It a portion of a
thigh bone of some gigantic prehistoric
reptile. The late Professor 0. C. Marsh, of
Yale, was notified and made a quick trip
to Canon City.
It took eight years to gather enough of'
the rest of the skeleton to make a recog
nisable teptile--hard work at that. On
quch material as could be got together
Marsh was able to set up a new family pf
dinosaurs. which he called Ceratosauridae,
a new genus which he termed Ceratosarus,
and a new species which he named Nasi
cornis. Later. Marsh died before the full
fruits of his work could be realised.
It wasn not until 1915 that a nearly com
plete skeleton of Ceratosaurus was re
(-efed at the National Museum in Wash
ington. The World War was on and men
of science were drafted into research
,.o-nil. So, i was e..act. S....le. 15.
It
AWsee.
bd, the Brailam Fevu, Whisk Was a
of Half a MIlWen Years A.
1920, before Dr. Gilmore was able to show
the world a near perfect mounted skeleton.
accompanied by a life-sine model of the"
reptile as he undoubtedly looked and
acted ID life.
Ceratosaurus reptiles ranged from 15 to~
25 feet in length. The type skeleton ii
22 feet long and 12 feet high, As a carni
vore its particular prey is beieved to have
been the herbivorous dinosaur, Claosaurus,
which had numerous teetht,by yhich it
oould strip, macerate and devour soft
vegetation. These dinosaurs had a known
range of some 300 miles along the eastern,
slope of the Rockies, but later finds of
fossils may extend it. Professor Marsh
stated:
"The skull was very large in proportion
to the rest of the skeleton, the back part
being most elevated and widest. The face
was long, tapering gradually to the muzzle
Neen from above, it resembled that of ai
crocodile in outline." Marsh thought the
reptile had a large, long, shearp horn Onl
top of the nose. Gilmore, however, in bila
lhfe-like restoration, shows merely a hump.
or, rather, a vestige, as if the reptle,
scorning its use as a weapon, was trying
to discard it altogether, exactly what hi.4
tucceshors and assigns achieved.
Marsh found that OeratosauruM had th*e
largest brain case, proportionately, of all
carnivorous dinosaurs, "far exceeding
those of herbivorous dinosaurs." This is
exactly what w'as repeated when manm
maIm arived. The cat family are tho
brainiest of mammals,
Our hay eders are generally rather
stupid, excepting the horse-somne horses
-like their ancestral first herbivorous
reptiles.
Ceratosaurus did much for the teeth of
modern felines. He or his forefathers
worked at a reductions in their number.
The result was two rows of sharp-cuttinc
teeth, fi geen to each row. Ip additlnn
there w~ethree functional teeth, lying~
detachd 'betWeen the jaws. The front
teeth were robust and recurved, the others
diminishing in sise backwards. In mry
opinion the functional teethi were t!'.
same as we see In snakes anr1 shark at
is, teeth that form behind, then, for
ward and take the place of those def'yed '