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
In transverse section of the crown the tooth structure
resembles Ichthyosaurus, Cetaceans, and Bats. The dentine is filled
with calciferous tubes which radiate as in Ichthyosaurus, and towards
the centre of the tooth are seen in transverse section to present
many angles, almost like radiated corpuscles. They are separated by
interspaces of their own width, and run towards the circumference,
sometimes straight and sometimes wavy, parallel to each other. They
send off branches usually at right angles which anastomose with the
adjoining tubes. The dentine is in concentric layers, and shows layers
of sub-circular cells as in the teeth of Mammals. The enamel is a thin
transparent layer with fewer and finer tubes than the dentine.
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A SUMMING UP.
The story of the structure of the Ornithosaurians of the Cambridge
Greensand has now been told, and it only remains to gather up the
threads of their affinities and determine the Pterodactyle's place
in nature. But before doing so, so various in importance are the
characters enumerated, that I would first offer a few remarks on the
classificational value of characters among the Reptilia, with which
Pterodactyles have been most commonly grouped.
The naturalist who only examines organisms now living on the earth,
symbolizes to himself, by the term Reptile, a definite sum of
characters, with definite subdivisions and subordinate grouping, to
which the extinct types of life extricated from the rocks cannot
entirely be adapted. When the fragmentary, and often isolated or
ill-associated, bones of fossilized animals are contrasted with
corresponding bones in the skeletons of Serpents, Crocodiles, Lizards
and Turtles, not infrequently it is found that the characters
attributed to different Ordinal groups are interlaced in a single
individual with a type of organization peculiar to itself, and
important as are the modifications of existing orders. These characters
occasionally are grouped with others which in living animals had been
deemed characteristic of Fishes, Amphibia, Birds, and Mammals.
The Reptilia of the Palæontologist is therefore a vast and provisional
group, ever acquiring new characters, to which no diagnosis can be
applied. And although certain empirical characters have served to
allocate the specimens in their several orders, in general with
sufficient accuracy, yet from the imperfect preservation of some of the
remains, or the imperfect extent to which their structures are known,
and the want of recognised canons by which to measure their relative
values, it has not been possible to discuss the relations of the
several orders to each other or with the larger groups on which some of
them impinge.
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