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 crania are all no larger than that of the Heron; though from
the Greensand are bones and jaws indicating Pterodactyles both
smaller and larger. The skulls are mostly remarkable for wanting
both basi-occipital and basi-temporal bones. And the specimen of
basi-temporal and basi-occipital corresponds posteriorly with the
Pterodactyle atlas, anteriorly with these crania; it is hence concluded
to have belonged to a similar animal. Being relatively twice as
large, it indicates that in these animals the basi-occipital condyle
was proportionally larger than in known birds; and that animals of
a cognate kind had skulls probably twice the size of these. The
anterior basal part of the hinder sphenoid terminates in a remarkable
triangular surface, with two perforations, which are separated by a
median ridge. Almost entirely corresponding with this is the basal
surface of the anterior part of a cranium, fractured in front of the
pituitary fossa. Therefore, and as it indicates a similar capacity of
brain, it is regarded as belonging to the same kind of animal as the
others ; but being five times the size, it must, if the proportions of
the Heron were preserved, have been part of a head a yard long.
Now, as there is no other animal with the same texture of bone, or
exhibiting with high organization the same diversity of size, these
cranial fragments are referred to the jaws and bones of Pterodactyle.
So marked are their structures that many quarry-men refer vertebrate
fossils to their several orders with almost as much accuracy as would a
practised anatomist.
Basi-occipital and Basi-temporal.
Pl. 11.
Basi-occipital, Owen, _Sup. Cret. Rep._ p. 6, T. 1, figs. 11, 12, 13.
Case. Comp. Tablet.
=J= _c_ 7
This bone was not found associated with any set of fossils that
would induce us to refer it to one species more than to another. Its
Ornithosaurian character was probable; and Prof. Owen described it in
his last memoir on the Greensand Pterodactyles.
But though indubitably basi-occipital, it is so anomalous in some
respects that the Professor regarded the under as the upper surface;
since then the investing phosphate of lime has been removed, and the
bone is now described in what appears to be its natural position.
Viewed from above the fossil divides into two parts; the occipital
condyle, and an anterior, wide, transversely oblong extension
terminating at each side in a strong short horn. The posterior half
of the condyle shows large cancelli as though so much of it had been
covered by the articular cartilage. The sides of the condyle converge,
so that posteriorly it is only two-thirds of the width it has at the
foramen magnum, which would appear to indicate a comparatively slight
lateral motion of the head. The condyle is hemispherical posteriorly
and superiorly; there is a depression between it and the great foramen
of the skull; inferiorly it is flat.
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