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 smallest specimen is a compressed sub-semicircular bone
1-1/4 inch long, 9/16 inch high, and a 1/4 inch thick. The under surfaces
converge to form a strong keel, which is flattened off behind.
Above this, the posterior third of the bone is compressed
obliquely to half the thickness, as though a bone had over-lapped
this area on each side. If the oval spaces are nares, that
bone might have been the pterygoid or palatine. Three-fifths
of the remainder of the bone are taken up by the smooth oval
depressions, which might be the inner walls of the nares; and above
this is a margin of bone widening into the triangular compressed
part in front, which, if the fossil is rightly determined, must have
fitted into the posterior end of the maxillary or anterior end of
the palatine bones.
A specimen collected by the Rev. T. G. Bonney is preserved on
the sacral side of a left _os innominatum_ with the keel downward.
It appears to show a sutural surface from which an anterior part
has come away. And if this specimen is compared with the
neural arch of the sacral vertebra =J=._c_.4.1, it will be found to
correspond entirely. It is not impossible that _c_.10.1, 2 may be
vomerine, and _c_.10.3 sacral, but there are no distinctive characters
between the specimens to warrant such a determination.
QUADRATUM.
Pl. II.
and Quadrato-Jugal.
Case. Comp. Tablet. Specimen.
=J= _c_ 11 1-4
In the Woodwardian Museum are two distal ends of the quadrate bone and
two other fragments showing the quadrato-jugal with it.
_Quadrate._ The smallest specimen is 1/2 an inch over the articular
surface for the lower jaw and a quarter of an inch thick. It is concave
from side to side in front where it shows a large pneumatic foramen
near the basal end; it is bent from the articulation a little backward.
It is convex behind; and between the foramen and the articulation sends
inward and forward a great wing like that of the quadratum in birds.
The specimens are broken short off and do not show any articulation
above, where the bone contracts.
The distal articulation is double, like two long cones placed together;
that in front having the base outward, while the hinder one has the
base on the inner side. The largest specimen, which is much broken,
shows the articulation half an inch thick.
_Quadrato-jugal._ This is a thin flat squamous bone, apparently of a
transverse diamond shape, which is anchylosed to the anterior lateral
margin of the quadrate, at right angles to the articulation. The lower
margin is straight, as is the upper anterior margin, which appears to
have received the malar bone above.
The upper posterior side is broken, but shows a large foramen near
to the side of the quadrate. The base of the diamond is at the
articulation, and at its apex is a small fragment of smooth surface,
either part of a foramen, or the orbit of the eye.
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