Anthracotheriidæ in Ceylon

Abstract

IN 1941 a collection of fossils made by Mr. M. C. Wickremasekera from the Ratnapura beds near Kuruvita in Ceylon was sent to the Colombo Museum by Mr. D. N. Wadia, Government mineralogist. Examination revealed the premolar tooth of a member of the family Anthracotheriidæ of the order Ancodonta. Dr. E. H. Colbert, of the American Museum of Natural History, to whom sketches and photographs of the tooth were afterwards sent, agrees with my identification and this confirms a discovery of considerable importance to Ceylon geology. In the first article¹ describing mammalian fossils from Ceylon it was suggested that they were of late Pliocene or early Pleistocene age.