The Ornithosauria: An elementary study of the bones of Pterodactyles made from fossil remains found in the Cambridge Upper Greensand, and arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of CambridgeSeeley, H. G. (Harry Govier)
Science
The Ornithosauria: An elementary study of the bones of Pterodactyles made from fossil remains found in the Cambridge Upper Greensand, and arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge
Seeley, H. G. (Harry Govier)
Pterosauria
Pterodactyles make some approach in the proportions of their sternum
to Struthious birds. But the Struthionidæ have the bone thick, do
not develop a keel, nor, have they an inter-coracoid process while
the coracoid articulations are singularly long and narrow instead
of being ovate. With other birds the Pterodactyle sternum agrees in
giving attachment to the coracoid bones by synovial articulations, in
the bone being shield-shaped, and supporting a more or less developed
keel. The keel is chiefly developed at the proximal end, as in the
Albatross, which has the bone broad; and it is prolonged in front of
the coracoids exactly as in _Mergus merganser_, which sternum if a
little broader in the shield and thicker in the keel would very nearly
reproduce the sternum of the Pterodactyle, even to the "post-coracoid
lateral emargination" of Cambridge specimens. Among reptiles the only
form which suggests comparison is the Chameleon, in which however the
sternum consists of an anterior and a posterior part as in the Bats,
the back part narrow, and the front part a long lozenge shape, with
a keel made by inclination of the sides of the bone to each other as
in the Dodo, but the keel such as it is, is at the back part of the
bone, and there is no prolongation in front of the coracoids as in
Pterodactyle. The coracoids are broad, and are applied to the two
anterior sides of the lozenge. The Crocodile has a narrow flat sternum
which is prolonged anteriorly between the coracoids.
The resemblance is greater with mammals than with reptiles. From birds
the Pterodactyle sternum makes no essential difference, and in the
Merganser finds a close ally.
CORACOID.
Pl. 2, fig. 1-6.
Case. Comp. Tablet. Specimen.
=J= _a_ 2 1-23
Commonly the coracoid in the Cambridge Pterodactyles is anchylosed to
the scapula: occasionally the bones are separate, though the separation
has hitherto only been observed in the largest species. In 1851
Professor Owen, when figuring the anchylosed ends of the scapula and
coracoid in Pterodactylus giganteus (Bowerbank), observed that in no
part of the skeleton does the Pterodactyle more nearly resemble a bird
than in the scapular arch; a view again urged emphatically in 1859 when
similar fragments were described from the Cambridge Greensand. Since
then perfect examples of the coracoid have occurred, which show the
characters given in the following description.
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