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
[Footnote T: The Gryphi are a class of animals intermediate between
Birds and Mammals according to Wagler, and including Pterodactyles,
Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurs, Ornithorhynchus, and Myrmecophaga.]
But with Birds the correspondence is so close that it would be
difficult to discover differences. That one of the condition of the
occipital bone seems to be the most important; another is, that from
the relatively smaller size of the cerebellum the parietal bones appear
to cover a larger part of the cerebrum; and a third is the strong
triangular condition of the sphenoid in front of the sella tursica.
With these exceptions there is nothing to distinguish the fossil
described from the cranium of a bird.
Back of another Cranium.
Pl. 11. fig. 1, 2.
Case. Comp. Tablet. Specimen.
=J= _c_ 8 2
Another cranium has occurred which must be referred to a different
genus. Its preservation is less perfect, but it similarly exhibits the
occipital and parietal segments of the skull. All the bones are blended
together without a trace of a suture.
The _occipital region_ is flat. Its outline is not defined owing to
the extent to which the sharp crest, in which it terminated outwardly,
has been broken away. The occipital condyle is broken off. The foramen
magnum is of an ovate form--flattened at the base. The ex-occipitals at
its sides are impressed as though from contact with the neurapophyses
of the atlas. Mesially, over the foramen magnum is a vertical elevated
crest (now rubbed away), which may have given attachment to a bone
like that post-superoccipital crest described by Quenstedt in the
_Pterodactylus suevicus_. The occipital region makes a great angle with
the flat basi-temporal region, as in birds.
The _parietal region_ is convex from below upward, the lateral parts
converging towards the crown, which however presents a broken and
worn surface. From side to side the squamosal and parietal bones are
concave, owing to the extended occipital crest behind, and the rapid
widening of the skull in front caused by the large size of the brain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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