Page:A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere.djvu/202

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
178
LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

is much richer than the southern continent, where, indeed, all the hoofed animals are the descendants of comparatively recent immigrants from the north and none are truly autochthonous. Members of three different artiodactyl suborders occur in the Neotropical region; the peccaries (Tagassu) extend through Central and South America to Paraguay,

Fig. 99. — Vicuña (Lama vicunia). — By permission of the N.Y. Zoölog. Soc.

though also entering the Sonoran region in Texas. Most interesting are the members of the camel family, which are very distinct from the true Camel of Asia. Tierra del Fuego and the Patagonian plains support great herds of the Guanaco (Lama huanacus), which extends along the Andes to Ecuador and Peru, where it is associated with the Vicuña (L. vicunia), a smaller and more slenderly built species. The Vicuna does not range south of Bolivia. Just as the mountain systems of North America carry the Boreal and Transition faunas through nearly the whole breadth of the Sonoran region, so the high