Dragons of the Air: An Account of Extinct Flying ReptilesSeeley, H. G. (Harry Govier)
Science
Dragons of the Air: An Account of Extinct Flying Reptiles
Seeley, H. G. (Harry Govier)
Pterosauria
The Wealden strata being shallow, fresh-water deposits might have been
expected to supply better knowledge of Pterodactyles than has hitherto
been available. Jaws of Ornithocheirus sagittirostris have been found
in the beds at Hastings, and in other parts of Sussex. Some fragments
are as large as anything known. The best-preserved remains have come
from the Isle of Wight, and were rewards to the enthusiastic search of
the Rev. W. Fox, of Brixton. In the principal specimen the teeth were
short and wide, the head large and deep with large vacuities, but the
small brain case of that skull is bird-like. The neck bones are 2-1/2
inches long. In the upper part of the back the bones are united together
by anchylosis, so that they form a structure in the back like a sacrum,
which does not give attachment to the scapula, as in some Pterodactyles
from the Chalk, but the bones are simply blended, as in the
frigate-bird, allied to Pelicans and Cormorants. And then after a few
free vertebræ in the lower part of the back, succeeds the long sacrum,
formed in the usual way, of many vertebræ. I described a sacrum of this
type from the Wealden Beds, under the name _Ornithodesmus_, referable to
another species, which in many respects was so like the sacrum of a Bird
that I could not at the time separate it from the bird type. This genus
has a sternum with a strong deep keel, and the articulation for the
coracoid bones placed at the back of the keel in the usual way, but with
a relation to each other seen in no genus hitherto known, for the
articular surfaces are wedge-shaped instead of being ovate; and instead
of being side by side, they obliquely overlap, practically as in wading
birds like the Heron. I have never seen any Pterodactyle teeth so
flattened and shaped like the end of a lancet; and from this character
the form was known between Mr. Fox and his friends as "latidens." The
name Ornithodesmus is as descriptive of the sternum as of the vertebral
column. The wing bones, as far as they are preserved, have the
relatively great strength in the fore limb which is found in many of the
Pterodactyles of the Cretaceous period, and are quite as large as the
largest from the Cambridge Greensand. In the Sussex species named _P.
sagittirostris_ the lower jaw articulation was inches wide.
[Illustration: FIG. 67. STERNUM OF _ORNITHODESMUS_
Showing the overlapping facets for the coracoid bones (shaded) behind
the median keel]
[Illustration: FIG. 68. FRONT OF THE KEEL OF THE STERNUM OF
_ORNITHODESMUS LATIDENS_
Showing also the articulation for the coracoid bone]
A few Pterodactyles' bones have been discovered in the Neocomian sands
of England and Germany, and other larger bones occur in the Gault of
Folkestone and the north of France; but never in such association as to
throw light on the aspect of the skeleton.
ORNITHOCHEIRUS
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