Amarillo Sunday News-Globe (Amarillo, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 33, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 14, 1938 Page: 30 of 264
two hundred sixty four pages : ill. ; page 23 x 18 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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13i3.
Paleontology '«■*
Of the Panhandle
By CHARLES RENFROE
As early as 1878 (1) it was known that the rocks and
sands of the Texas Panhandle contained the remains of a
wonderful group of animals that had lived millions of
years ago and became extinct before man appeared on
the scene.
and finally the end with the victim
furnishing the meal for Eryops.
« • •
Another group of the primitive,
sprawling reptiles were known as
the Cotylosauria. Their heads were
completely incased in bone and
showing between the orbits was the
third, or pineal eye. (.5).
Rudiments of this third eye are
still present in the human Drain as
the pineal gland between the
cerebrum and the cerebellum. In
many of the modern lizards the
pineal gland is so well developed as
to have a rudimentary retina that
may be able to perceive light. (61.
By the last of the Triassic most of
the ornate, frilled and spiny forms
had died out. (7). The Triassic
Collectors have come into
the Panhandle since the
early days gathering fossils
for the American Museum
of Natural History, the Uni-
versity of Chicago, the Uni-
versity of Michigan, Denver
University, the University of
California, Yale and others.
(2)
The oldest rocks known in the
Panhandle were laid down during
the portion of geological time call-
ed the Permian age, just after the
period of coal deposition. They are
estimated to be from 150,000,000 to
250,000,000 years old. (3) Only the i
topmost part of the Permian is ex- j "ext -feeding age and the
K * : life in it was predominately rep-
posed In the Panhandle, it was a ; tilian. It is well represented in the
period marked by the drying of j Panhandle. Beneath the sandstone
shallow seas and the formation of ! escarpment, which is the upper part
_ of the Triassic in the Palo Duro Park
great salt basins Much of the gyp- | are £ound literai]y hunareds of teeth_
sum found in the Palo Duro Can- ; anc) armor plate.
yon is the result of the drying of | The red, purple and maroon
Inland seas and the deposition of
the gypsum that the sea waters
had held in solution. The climate
was arid and cold, hardly suitable to
any type of animal life. Fossil re-
mains are correspondingly rare in
the upper Permian of Northwest
Texas.
However, in the lower part of the
Permian before the arid period a
wonderful group of Permian life
lived on what was then a great
delta In Northwest Texas.
• • •
Of all the animals found in the
Permian the mast striking are the
reptiles. The reptiles made their
first appearance in the latter part
of the coal age, but here at the be-
ginning of the Permian they devel-
oped a great diversity of form and
habit. There were land and water
forms, meat-eaters, plant-eaters,
forms resembling giant salamanders
and other forms so bizarre and gro-
tesque that the world had produced
nothing more strange.
Eryops (4) was a horny headed
amphibian about seven feet long.
His head was about two feet long
and studded with thorns much in the
same manner as today's horned toad.
The jaw was hinged at the back of
the skull, so that the animal had a
tremendous gape. It resembled a
great overgrown salamander with
weak sprawling limbs that could not
raise the body from the ground ex-
cept by great effort.
This animal probably played the
same part in Permian waters as that
of the modern alligator, lying nearly
covered in the water of some an-
cient Texas stream or lagoon with
only the eves and nostrils exposed.
Then a swift surge of muddy waters,
a threshing about of ungainly bodies
higher lands, forests of tree - ferns
and the first conifers (pine family)
threw patches of dancing shadows
over murky pools.
Today tri the Palo Duro sand-
stones one can find the ripple marks
of these ancient streams and even
tell the direction of their flow by
examining them closely. Here a bit
of hard shale split open will show
characteristic cones of raindrops
falling into soft silt. Rain frozen
into stone by the magic alchemy of
the years!
Across these prehistoric mud flats
ran swift elusive little forms, tiny
reptiles, some no larger than a hen.
Today in the same bit of shale
that recorded the ancient rain-
shower can be found the tracks of
these reptiles.
Larger, more fearsome beasts liv-
ed in the lagoonal shore that was
the Panhandle. Strange crawling
sub-aquatic creatures reaching a
length of 28 feet. These were the
phytosaurs, a crocodile-like reptile
similar in many respects to the mod-
ern East Indian forms. '
They had a long curved snout
with three or four cylindrical teeth
at snout's end and over 200 smaller
teeth along the jaws. The neck,
body and tail were covered with four
or more rows of heavy armor plate.
It is thought by some authorities
that they had webbed feet. (9).
In the museum cases at the Pan-
handle Plains Historical Museum
are life models of the heads of this
type of reptile. Floyd Studer, mu-
seum paleontologist, has had one
specie of phytosaur named in his
hdnor by Dr. E. C. Case of the Unl-
] versity of Michigan and Dr. T. E.
White of Harvard. (.Leptosuchas
studeri)
The phytosaurs lived on the fish
Paleontological 1 able of the Panhandle
PERion
PLEISTOCENE
TERTIARY
(a) Pliocene
Mioccne, Ollgocene and
Kocene divisions of the
Tertiary not present in
Panhandle.
ROCKS FXPOSEO
Gravels, loos eTy~ con soli -
dated sands, alluvium, cal-
careous grits, soils, rewash-
ed material.
Caliche, sandstones, lime-
stones, marl.
AFPROX. NO. YRS. AGO
from beginning of period
150,000 Years
15,000.000 Years
ANIMAI. MFE
Elephant. slot.h.'slngle toed
horse, bear, bison, musk ox,
deer and most modern
forms.
Three-toed horse, sahcr-
toothed cats, rhinoceros,
elephant, dog, antelope,
camel, glyptodont, wolf,
peccaries, horned ungulate,
etc.
long Period of deposition followed by uplift ano extensive erosion, no record of
THIS PERIOD FOUND IN THE PANHANDLE PROPER. GAP IN THE TIME SEQUENCE.
Sandstones, conglomerates, Many reptilian forms, few
TRIASSIC red, yellow, purpie and ma- 100,000,000 Years
roon shales.
PERMIAN
Brick-red shales, red sand-
stones, dolamite, gypsum,
white bands of shale.
150,000,000 t" 350,000,000
Years
amphibians, fresh water
shell-fish, ganoids, lung-
fish. etc.
Amphibians, reptiles- Am-
phibians in large numbers.
well
and are well developed and
represented. (12).
Elephant remains have been found
in every county in the Texas Pan-
handle. 113). Hempnill and Don-
ley counties are particularly rich
in fossil mammals. The first fossil
find was made in Hemphill County.
The period of the Tertiary recog-
nized in the Panhandle is that of
the Pliocene. (14). That is the
period in which most of the mam-
mal fossils found are supposed to
have lived. At the beginning rf the
period conditions must have been er trees. Occasionally a giant giounn
similar to those of the African veldt, sloth ' Parmylodon) blundered across
Great upland meadows of grass, well (he Plains and swept branches of
toes on his foot. Hipparion was
small, standing about ten hands high
and built, like an antelope with a
large head. Plessipus, another horse
of this period, compared to the
modern Arabian horse in size and
general build. (15).
• • •
Animal life in the Panhandle
veldt was prolific. There was a
long-nerktd camel (Altachamclus)
who cropped t,he leaves off the high-
er trees and a .shorter-necked camel
(Procamelus) who fed on the short-
watered and drained by deep slow-
moving streams and scattered
leaves into his mouth with his long:
curved claws. Far off like a giant
clumps of trees along the banks, army tank comes the heaving and
MONSTROUS REPTILES crawled about our lagoons a
million years or so ago. Here is the proof—tracks in
shale and reptile teeth in the matrix.
I shales that make up most of the [of the Panhandle lagoonal streams.
' gorgeous coloring of the canyon j These fish
I was laid during the Triassic. It was
an era during which the Panhan-
I die was on the western shore of a ; known as ganoids. The ganoid fam-
jvast continent. (8). lily is represented in modern streams
Conditions were similar to those j hv the gar-pike of southern wa-
'of the Louisiana swamp country to- j ^
some of whose teeth are
on exhibit at the museum, were
(10),
In the Triassic. the
i day. Numerous muddy lagoons, tur-
: cid slow moving streams building j canoids must have been very nu-
i deltas and sand bars. From the'merous, Rome of their scales have
been found in the bony framework
of the reptile skeletons.
• • •
Another fish of the Triassic period
whose teeth have been found in the
Panhandle is the lung-fish. (11).
A few forms of this amazing crea-
ture still survive in Africa. South
America and Australia. They de-
veloped the ability to burrow into
mud during the dry season and He
dormant until the advent of the
rainy season.
They breathed by gills In the wa-
iter and by lungs at the surface
when the water became too stagnant
or muddy.
Lung-fish have been kept in blocks
of hardened mud for four years In
a New York University laboratory.
At the end of that period they came
out a trifle emaciated but still
healthy.
A fresh water shell fish is also
found in the Triassic rocks. Known
as Unio (Latin: pearl) the calcified
shells have been found in many
localities in the Panhandle and New
Mexico.
The periods from the Triassic to
the Tertiary are missing in the
Panhandle. It is thought that, dur-
ing the long period the Plains
country may have been submerged
and deposition took place but was
subject io a later and Intensive pe-
riod of erosion after uplift.
In the vicinity of Tahoka and
other places in the South Tlalns
caprock the presence of a sea mav be
discerned by numerous and varied
shellfish in I he rock and soil. This
was during Cretaceous times. . _ ,,^r>r- t c h- it
„ ... i „ , . EARLY PANHANDLE HORSE was Equus Scotti. He
Farther to the north in Colorado rru ■ ■
r.nd Wyoming the tremendous din- lived in the Pleistocene aj*o. I his specimen was nn-
osaurs came into prominence, earthed in Briscoe County and reposes in the Plains
Strange creatures of huge size walk- Museum at Canyon.
ed the land. It is very possible that
the 100-foot brontosaurus and ter- i The latter part of the period was ; grunting of an armadillo-like crea-
rible tyranosaurus may have fought | one 0f great unrest; conditions be- ture fifteen feet long (Glvptother-
caMon' of "the* Panhandle, 'bu^su'bse- ! came "lorP nnd mnr* fevPrP' pro" ,um) <">. hto ornate carapace glit-
quent erosion has destroyed all trace j phetic of the glacial period to come, tering dully in the sun, his clubbed
; of them in Northern Texas. Most Great herds of horses swarmed tall bumping a little in the dust,
likely during the period when the lover the Western Plains. Horses Dark and massive In the distance
(dinosaurs reached their maximum ranging from the graceful antelope- against the blue of the sky and the
development the Panhandle was un- like proportions of Hipparion to the . .. , H
cipr TVfilpr '* i j u •' i r t- i i • i, gray or the grasslands, a hern of
I aer waier, | stockier build of Pliohippus whose
The next age where there was any i skeleton approached the proportions i elephants wash themselves in the
appreciable amount of deposition j of the modern horse. Pliohippus was I river shallows. Smaller than to-
| in the Panhandle was in the Ter- i the most progressive of the upland j day's elephants with longer skulls
| Mary or age of mammals a period I horses having only one ton while j but still distinctly elephants. A
. beginning about, so.mn.non year* ago Hipparion. a contemporary of Plio- horned rhinoceros hidden In the
! Fossils found are mostly mammal I htppus. had threp wll developed I deep reeds by the rlvrr stops graz-
ft
lng and gazes with little pig eves
as a herd of peccaries run up to he
water hole and mill around in the
mud. Their leaders watch for en-
emies, their tusks clashing in lltt.le
bright notes over the sound of
grunting and splashing.
In the pool a five-foot turtle
watches with disinterested eyes the
antics of the peccaries, hoping that
one of the baby peccaries will ven-
ture out too far. Little ripples
break around the slimy green of his
shell.
The sun goes down behind a Maze
of cumulus and the herds of horses
begin to bed down. A dog howls in
loneliness to the rising moon. A
soft buzz of insects and the soft
sounds of night creep in. The lead-
er of the horses keeps a watchful
eye on a small clump of sedge where
is hidden one of the saber-toothed
cats (Machereodus). The leader's
mane blows a little in the night,
wind. The plain becames a vast
field of mist shot with moonlight.
Another day has passed on the Pan-
handle veldt.
Then another and many others
and finally many thousands of years.
The days begin to £row colder and
the lush grassland begins to wither
in the arid air. A series of glaciers
form in the north and march down
into the United States. The Pleis-
tocene age has begun and man is
soon to appear in the New World.
The Pleistocene was a period of
alternating cold and warmth. The
glowing aridity of the Plains was a
powerful factor in the extinction of
many life forms on the Plains. Some
like the camels migrated from North
to South America where they now
exist as the Llama group, ;17).
The horse disappeared entirely
with the secon^j advance of the Ice
sheet. He may have lingered longer
in South America. The extinction of
the horse In a region which later !
turned out to be well adapted to
its habits has long been a mystery.
• • •
It Is thought that the horses tn
North America and unglar.lated
South America were wiped out by
an epidemic that was spread far
and wide by insects. During th
moist periods between glaciatlon in-
sect life probably reached a new
high.
A disease such as the sleeping sick-
ness of Africa or the Surra disease,
which kills so many domestic) horse*
in India, may have been the cause
of the extinction. (18).
It is known that by the Mm
white man appeared In the New
World the horse had entirely dis-
appeared.
Equus scotti, (19), the last of the
Pleistocene horses, a skeleton of
which now stands in the Yale Mu-
seum and also In our own museum,
was an old inhabitant of the Pan-
handle. He stood about fifteen hands
high and was proportioned like a
western broncho with an abnormally
large head. He managed to survive
the first glacial advance but later
for some unknown reason became
extinct.
The elephants seemed to have
reached their maximum develop-
ment during this period. Their re-
I mains are washed out from time to
time in localities all over the Pan-
handle. But he too became ex-
tinct shortly after the first man had
appeared on the continent.
With the later Indian migrations
animal life was much ss it, is today
| in the remoter districts, Man, the
i most destructive of all creatures,
seems to be hurrying many of today's
(Continued on Page 101
33 Years in Amarillo
Year
In the
26
JEWELRY
BUSINESS
In the same location . , ,
•GOOD GOODS
•FAIR PRICES
• SQUARE
DEALING
have ma de this un-
broken, liable business
growth possible.
YOUR PATRONAGE APPRECIATED
J. T. RUSSELL
123
JEWELER
Fa<t 5th Street
Since 1712
Ph
on* 7406
Amarillo's
Cotton Seed Products Mill!
&
m
S4
ip
Feeling that the great plains territory would welcome a Cotton Mill that could servp th«
ca ttle men and dairy industries with prompt and efficient service on cotton seed products
this institution was established here February I, 1926.
That our confidence was not misplaced is proved by the fact that we have more than
Photo Courtesy Amarillo Junior C. of C. and News-Glob*
doubled the size and output of our plant since it was established. We feel that we are
filling a need for the progress of this territory and will grow with the constant develop-
ment that is sure to come in the future. All demands in our line of industry will be met
with prompt service . . . when you think of Cotton Seed products think of The Amarillo
Cotton Oil Co.
AMARILLO COTTON OIL COMPANY
Manufacturers of Cotton Seed Cake, Meal, Hulls
Wholesale and Retail
Telephones: Local, 2-3440; L. D., 30; Night 4506
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Amarillo Sunday News-Globe (Amarillo, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 33, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 14, 1938, newspaper, August 14, 1938; Amarillo, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth299921/m1/30/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hutchinson County Library, Borger Branch.