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
The bone is long, with sub-parallel sides, sub-triangnlar in section,
with the proximal end expanded exteriorly and posteriorly, resembling
in form the coracoid of a bird. The front surface looks forward and
outward; it is flattened, is a little convex transversely, and a
little convex in length; it is rugose with muscular attachments, which
terminate in a tubercle on the uppermost fourth of the front, usually
near to the inner side. The middle third of the slightly concave
inside margin of the front aspect, is sharply angular; the parts above
and below it have the angularity rounded off. The outside margin, a
little more concave than the inside margin, is sharply angular in its
distal third, in which the front gradually widens to near the sternal
articulation, when it contracts--the whole sternal termination of
the bone being directed a little inward towards the manubrium of the
sternum. The inside, which faces the opposite coracoid, is convex
transversely in the lower half or two-thirds; its distal termination is
carried inward. The expanded proximal end of the inside is flattened,
or channelled, by the developement inwardly, at the proximal end
of the ridge formed with the front side, of a long strong process
homologous with that on the inner side of the coracoid in birds. The
channel so formed rounds on to the proximal surface of the bone, and
extends backward to the limit of the scapula; over it the second
pectoral muscle may be presumed to have worked[N]. The third side of
the bone is much more concave in length than either of the others;
it looks backward, outward, and downward, the proximal end being
turned outward and downward more than the distal end; it is a little
concave transversely at the expanded proximal end. Near the distal
end there are sometimes visible a few faint marks of the insertion of
muscular fibres, but they are much less distinct than those made by the
coraco-brachialis muscle in the corresponding region of the coracoid
in birds. Throughout its length it rounds into the inner side, and the
upper third rounds convexly into the front. On the most posterior part
of this aspect of the proximal end is a groove terminating in a long
pneumatic foramen, partly in the coracoid, partly in the scapula.
[Footnote N: The homologous process is more developed in Pterodactylus
giganteus. See f. 7. pl. XXXI. Owen, Cret. Rept.]
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