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
Nos. 20, 21, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, are examples of the distal ends of
humeri of a different type. They are mostly larger than the preceding
group, and correspond in characters with the large proximal ends, but
appear to be separable into two groups, namely those with a pneumatic
foramen on the anterior radial side near to the articular surface,
and those where no pneumatic foramen is seen. Unlike the previously
considered type, the ulnar side is sometimes more inflated than the
radial side.
The mesial condyle in this group appears in every case to be an
epiphysis, which is wanting. The radial condyle becomes a large
flattened slightly convex surface looking downwards, which in some of
the species, as Nos. 21 and 32 (in other respects remarkable species),
shows an approach to a trochlear character on its anterior side. In
Nos. 33, 34 and 35 the mesial anterior concavity becomes flattened and
abuts at an angle against the flattened radial condyle. No. 20 shows
the rhomboid impression on the ulnar side to be more concave and more
ovate. The ulnar condyle remains a smaller but prominent tubercle
directed distally. Nos. 21, 22 and 34 show a ridge developed on the
ulnar side of the shaft like that on the radial side in the other
group, while the radial ridge is not so near to the articular surface.
The largest and smallest distal ends of humeri known, both show the
characters here enumerated. The great distal end of a left humerus,
figured by Prof. Owen, Pl. IV. f. 1, 2, 3 of the 1st Supplement to the
Cretaceous Pterosauria, is of this kind, and though imperfect measures
more than three inches over what remains of the articular surface. In
the small humerus, No. 30, the width over the distal articular surface
is 5/8ths of an inch. If it is assumed that the large bone was no more
than 5 times the length of the small one, the entire length of the
humerus would have been about twelve inches. The smallest humerus, No.
29, measures over the shaft rather more than one eighth of an inch.
The Ornithosaurian humerus has but little in common with that of any
mammal. Most mammals have the proximal head of the bone hemispherical,
and a pit at the distal end for the olecranon process of the ulna,
while there is usually little indication of a radial crest, and the
proximal and distal ends are in the same plane. In the Bat however the
bone is twisted a little so that the slight radial crest looks in the
same direction as the distal end, here also there is no pit for the
olecranon; but the bone is sigmoid and proportionally much longer than
in Pterodactyles. In the horse, hippopotamus, &c., the radial process
becomes more developed but never resembles that of a Pterodactyle.
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