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 large proportional size of the neck-vertebræ is common to some
birds, and is conspicuous in many mammals, like the Llama. In most
mammals where the vertebræ have a cup-and-ball articulation, the ball
is in front, as it is in the dorsal vertebræ of the penguin, so that
those vertebræ are not comparable with Pterodactyles, although on the
under side of the centrum they similarly give off a mesial process
below the cup, and a lateral process below the ball on each side. The
neural spine in Pterodactyle is commonly more developed than is the
case with long-necked birds or mammals. Reptiles such as Crocodiles and
Lizards have the neural spines of the neck-vertebræ well developed.
Birds differ from Pterodactyles in the peculiar articulation of their
vertebræ. In both the centrum is often depressed, in both it is concave
from side to side in front, and convex from side to side behind, but
in birds it is also convex from above downward in front, and concave
from above downward behind, while the reverse arrangement obtains in
Pterodactyles. A similar condition to that of the bird is seen in
the neck-vertebræ of the Kangaroo, of Man, and several mammals, only
the vertical curves are less marked. Vertebræ concave in front, and
convex behind, and devoid of cervical ribs, are met with among the
Lizards, but neither Monitor nor Iguana offer any parallel to the form
of the cervical vertebræ of Pterodactyle, which is best matched among
Marsupials and Birds. Birds commonly have more vertebræ in the neck
than have Pterodactyles, which in that respect resemble mammals and
some Lizards.
Dorsal Vertebræ.
Pl. 10.
Case. Comp. Tablet. Specimen.
=J= _c_ 3 1-20
Twenty specimens are mounted to exemplify pectoral and dorsal vertebræ.
Like the cervical vertebræ, they include two types of form, one with
the centrum flat, figured in pl. 2. fig. 20-22 of the memoir on
Pterodactylus Sedgwicki, and regarded by Prof Owen as anterior dorsal;
and the other form with a convex centrum, figured 24-25 of the same
plate of the same memoir, regarded by Prof. Owen as posterior dorsal.
Following the analogy of birds such determination is as well supported
as the similar reference of the two types of cervical vertebræ to
anterior and posterior parts of the neck, but fuller materials compel a
reference of the two types of dorsal vertebræ to two different genera.
Nos. 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 19 belong to the flat type. Nos.
2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18 exemplify the convex type.
Dorsal vertebræ are rare fossils; and in the associated sets of bones
never more than four dorsal vertebræ are found, rarely more than one.
No specimen of the type with a convex centrum occurs in the associated
sets.
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