Many of the smaller or less capable types died out.
Others developed enormous bulk or complete armor protection, and
thereby saved themselves from the new beasts. In consequence, South
America soon became populated with various new species of mastodons,
sabre-toothed tigers, camels, horses, deer, cats, wolves, hooved
creatures of strange shapes and some of them of giant size, all of
these being descended from the immigrant types; and side by side with
them there grew up large autochthonous [TR: original autochthonus]
ungulates, giant ground sloths well-nigh as large as elephants, and
armored creatures as bulky as an ox but structurally of the armadillo
or ant-eater type; and some of these latter not only held their own,
but actually in their turn wandered north over the isthmus and invaded
North America. A fauna as varied as that of Africa to-day, as abundant
in species and individuals, even more noteworthy, because of its huge
size or odd type, and because of the terrific prowess of the more
formidable flesh-eaters, was thus developed in South America, and
flourished for a period which human history would call very long
indeed, but which geologically was short.
Then, for no reason that we can assign, destruction fell on this
fauna. All the great and terrible creatures died out, the same fate
befalling the changed representatives of the old autochthonous fauna
and the descendants of the migrants that had come down from the north.
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