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 — John Shaqi
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
Four specimens which show articular ends such as the ulna should have,
are mounted together. They are compressed bones with the section of
the fracture elongately oval; and the shaft widens from the fracture
to the articulation without increasing in thickness. The outer surface
is gently convex, becoming concave mesially near the articulation;
the inner surface has the same characters, only the concavity at the
extreme distal end reaches from side to side of the bone. The two short
sides both look outward as well as laterally; one of them flattened so
as to thicken the bone, is concave in vertical outline owing to the
extreme distal end turning suddenly outward; the other side a little
convex, compresses the bone and inflects its inner margin. The longest
specimen measures 1-5/8 inch; 5/8 inch wide at the fracture, and 1-1/8
inch wide at the distal end. The greatest thickness at the distal end
is half an inch, the thickness of the fractured shaft is 5/8 of an inch.
The articular surface appears to have an elongated sub-reniform shape,
the part at the compressed side of the bone being narrower than the
broad ovate part on the thick side of the bone, to the lateral limit
of which it extends, while the narrow part does not extend laterally
nearly so far as the inflected border, which appears to give attachment
to powerful muscles. There is also a strong muscular attachment at the
corresponding diagonal corner of the bone where the outer surface on
its right meets the side of the bone in an elevated ridge.
In its long diameter the articulation is a little convex; transversely
it is very convex in the ovate part, but more flattened in its narrower
continuation. Where widest it measures about 4/10ths of an inch.
Nos. 5 and 6 on another tablet appear to be distal ends of ulna of
another kind of Pterodactyle. They are less compressed, more quadrate
in section, and have the sides more nearly parallel The flattened
side similarly has a concave border, but instead of having its distal
termination developed laterally, has it thickened behind. The opposite
side of the bone which in the other specimens was compressed is here
thick and well rounded, and not at all inflected. There is an absence
of the concavity noticed on the outer surface of the bone in the
compressed specimens. The articular surface is much flatter, and a
little concave in length instead of being convex; as in the other
examples it looks downward. The largest fragment. No. 5, measures 1-3/8
inch long; it is 6/8 inch wide at the fracture, and 4/8 inch thick. The
sub-quadrate distal end is more than an inch long, more than 4/8ths
inch thick on the thick side, and nearly 4/8ths inch thick on the
compressed side.
II. Distal End of Radius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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