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
The impression of the tail contains some of the most interesting features
in the entire specimen. Scattered over it and in places laid in mosaic
are impressions of small dermal scales, which may have covered the
entire body. In form the scales are ovoid, being half as wide as long,
and the markings on the scales partake of the nature of radiating lines,
much after the pattern of the sculpturing of the cranial bones in the
Microsauria. The scales are less than 0.5 mm. in diameter and their
character can only be ascertained under high magnification. Near the
middle of the tail there are preserved distinct transverse bands of
dark color, which are more or less evident throughout the entire tail
impression, but they are elsewhere not so distinct as in the central
region. The lines are evidently due to rows of pigmented scales, and in
all probability the animal's body was transversely striped.
The most interesting and important single structure discovered on the
specimen is the impression of the lateral-line system, which is clearly
evident as two dark lines on the impression of the fleshy part of the
tail. The sense-organs are represented by two longitudinal rows of
pigmented scales, one beginning at the tip of the tail, the other taking
its origin from the median line somewhat further forward. I am indebted to
Dr. Katashi Takahashi for calling my attention to the similarity of this
arrangement to that found in the recent _Necturus_. The arrangement and
disposition of the lines containing the sense-organs is practically the
same in the two forms. The median lateral-line takes its origin from the
extreme tip of the tail and is continued to the base, where the impression
is broken. The dorsal lateral-line has its origin rather abruptly from the
median lateral-line at a distance of 6 mm. from the tip of the tail. The
sense-organs were undoubtedly located beneath specialized pigmented scales
on the surface, and to this pigment is due the preservation of the lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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