2-798-814 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Hunterian Museum, at the Royal College of Surgeons, 1845. Display of animal skeletons at The Hunterian in London. 'The first large object seen, on the right, is the fossil of a gigantic extinct Armadillo, from Buenos Ayres. A shell of the common armadillo is placed on this enormous specimen, to show by comparison its vast size, which was also its protection, as it has no joints to roll itself up with, like the animal of the present day. On the left is the fossil skeleton of the Mylodon, a large extinct quadruped of the Sloth family, also found at Buenos Ayres. It is disposed as if climbing up a tree, to feed on the branches, &c., such being the manner in which, it is conjectured, it contrived to exist...The large skeleton to the right of the centre, is that of Charles O'Brian, the Irish giant, and is eight feet in height'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.