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 _occipital bones_ make with those at the base of the skull an
angle of about 145° or 150°. In outline they are a transverse diamond
shape. The mastoid portion is not to be distinguished from the other
bones, but appear to terminate the sides of the strong occipital
crest, which by posterior compression of the squamosals and parietals,
becomes very strong, and makes the backward boundary of the temporal
foss. This crest is in the same plane with the anterior border of the
basi-temporals.
The _parietals_ meet above in a slight ridge. They are two rectangular
bones twice as wide as long, forming a semicircular roof for the brain,
which looks outward and a little backward. Anteriorly these bones
unite with the frontals in a slightly flexuous transverse line; and
inferiorly they are connected with the periotic, the squamosal, and
perhaps with the anterior point of the alisphenoid: they do not descend
to the plane of the articulations of the free quadrate bones. The
surface is smooth, and on the upper part flat, but concave below from
side to side.
Below these parietals are the _squamosals_ and _alisphenoids_, but the
suture between them is not seen. They are in form a trapezium where
the short side is anterior, and the lower third is folded inward so as
to be confluent with the anterior part of the sphenoid. The fold forms
a ridge, which I suppose may run obliquely over the alisphenoid. The
unfolded squamosal part is a flat and smooth oblong, with parallel
sides, the bones are in parallel planes and nearly perpendicular to the
base of the skull. Where the alisphenoid joins the sphenoid, there is
a considerable concavity, above which is a small circular impression.
These strips approximate inferiorly, so that the width of the skull
there is rather more than half what it is at their outer margins. They
shut off the pituitary body in front of them, and appear to form part
of the wall for the orbit of the eye.--The slightly convex, lateral,
squamosal parts above the fold continue the circular transverse outline
of which the parietals are the upper half. They extend anterior to the
parietals, and on the inside give attachment to the frontals. Like the
parietals, they make a sharp bend outward at their hinder border, and
form the lateral terminations of the occipital ridge, which is the
widest part of this fossil.
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