ZEUGLODON, (Neo-Lat., from (1k. 0157Xn, .:.-eng10, strap or loop of a yoke, from zrugnyntti, to join + odous, tooth). An extinct whale, the earliest known fossil eelacean, found in Eocene deposits of various parts of the world. It was a gron I serpent like creature with body 50 to 70 feet long and from 6 to S feet in diameter at the thickest part of the trunk. The head was four feet long, the trunk 10 feet, and the fail had a length of 10 feet. The skull WIN elongated and flattened. re sembling that of the crocodile, and the blow-hole was near its middle. The teeth were like those of the Carnivora, from which the (AIICPIIIIS are supposed to hare VO i red, in that they were disposed in three series (incisors, 3; ea nines, 1; and molars, 5) the molars were pe culiar in that they had longitudinally compressed, serrated crowns and were attached by double roots.
The vertebra. of the tail were much larger than those of the trunk. The limbs consisted of small paddles, like those of the fur seal, just back of the head. and of very much reduced hind limbs, which are supposed to have been hidden under the skin and to have been totally useless. Zeuglodon bones are common in the Eocene marls of the Gulf States of North America, and they are known also from the Eocene deposits of vari ous parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. This wide distribution in dicates that the animal was a powerful swimmer and capable of a very cosmopolitan existence. Consult: Woodward, Outlines of Vertebrate Palwontology (Cambridge. 1898) ; Lucas, „I ni inals of the Past (New York, 1901). See CETA. CEA; WHALE.