The Coal Measures Amphibia of North AmericaMoodie, Roy Lee
Science
The Coal Measures Amphibia of North America
Moodie, Roy Lee
Amphibians, Fossil -- North America; Paleontology -- Carboniferous; Paleontology -- North America
Jaekel (347) described from the museum collection at Berlin 3 specimens of
this species, among which were 2 skulls. There were associated with these
remains some pectoral plates and limb bones with a nearly complete series
of vertebræ. A modified translation of Jaekel's description follows:
The skull of the largest specimen has, including the horns, a length of 35
mm. and a width of 30 mm. on the occipital border. From the anterior end
to the posterior border of the skull (exclusive of the horns) there is a
length of 25 mm. The pineal foramen lies about midway of this length. The
orbits are rather large, almost circular, and lie about midway between the
pineal foramen and the anterior border of the skull. The nostrils, which
lie anterior to the orbits, are a rather oblique oval and narrowed on the
lateral ends. The distance between them is about the same as that between
the orbits, which measures 7 mm.
[Illustration: MOODIE PLATE 16
1. Type specimen of _Diceratosaurus punctolineatus_ Cope, from
Linton, Ohio, beds. × 1. Drawn from photograph. _cl_=clavicle;
_h_=humerus; _ic_=interclavicle; _mc_=metacarpals;
_r-u_=radius-ulna; _rb_=rib; _sc_=scapula; _sq_=squamosal;
_vs_=ventral scutellæ.
2. Skull of _Sauropleura longidentata_, Moodie, from the Coal
Measures of Linton, Ohio. × 1. Drawn from photograph.
_fr_=frontal; _m_=maxilla; _n_=nasal; _or_=orbit; _par_=parietal;
_pp_=postparietal; _tab_=tabulare.
3. Mandible of _Sauropleura longidentata_, Moodie, from Coal
Measures of Linton, Ohio. × 1.5. Drawn from photograph.
4. Type specimen of _Sauropleura enchodus_ Cope, from the Coal
Measures of Linton, Ohio. × 1.
5. Additional specimen of _Diceratosaurus punctolineatus_ Cope, from
the Coal Measures of Linton Ohio. × 1. _f_=femur; _il_=ilium;
_mc_=metacarpal; _mt_=metatarsal; _ph_=phalanx; _r_=radius;
_t_=tibia.
]
The skull roof is sculptured with pits much like those of _Archegosaurus_.
The larger the bones, the rougher the sculpture. The bones of the middle
of the skull (that is, the parietals, frontals, premaxillæ, nasals, and
postparietals) are of the normal form and only show an unusual difference
in that they are large in the inverse order. The pineal foramen lies in
the anterior third of the parietals; that is the primitive condition
which occurs in the young forms of the Branchiosauridæ. The nostrils are
inclosed by the premaxillæ in front, in the median line by the nasals and
laterally by the maxillæ. The jugals, by their backward prolongation,
form, behind the maxillæ, the border of the skull, and only attain to some
size on the upper side of the cranium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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