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
+ Prof. Owen, _Comp. Anat._ Vol. I. p. 7-9, defines his
sub-classes. At p. 15, in the details of the orders, he puts
Ichthyosaurus in the 5th sub-class _Monopnoa_. But at p. 50,
treating of the vertebral column of Ichthyosaurus, it is written of
as an extinct order of _Dipnoal_ reptiles. The Dipnoa then
would include
Ichthyosauria,
Batrachia,
Labyrinthodontia,
Ganocephala.
But Ichthyosaurus obviously belongs to Haeckel's group Monocondylia.
In what characters the Ichthyosaurs are lower than living reptiles I
have been unable to discover. The palate may be better compared with
a struthious bird than with a reptile; and the pectoral girdle may be
better compared with the Ornithodelphia than with a reptile, while all
the trunk-vertebræ have ribs such as are associated in living animals
with a four-celled heart. But if it is a lower animal type than living
reptilia, the student will ask, how much lower? does it descend to
the Dipnoa, and prove to be the missing link between the Amphibia and
Reptilia? and wherein is the evidence? Or does it not with Dicynodonts
and Dinosaurs rather form an outlying class uniting the reptiles with
the mammals.
In the same way, when Pterosauria and Dinosauria are placed above
living reptiles, we are compelled to ask how much are they above, or
what are the characters which bind them to the Reptilia at all? No
satisfactory evidence has ever been adduced to show that the Dinosauria
are Reptiles. And of the claim of the Pterodactyles to such a position,
the facts detailed and now summarised will be the best evidence.
The highest structure shown in these remains is the brain-case. The
cavity for the brain is in every respect like that in the skull of a
bird. It resembles brains of a high type in having the cerebral lobes
convex in front; since, in the lower mammals, there is a resemblance
to reptiles in the conical form of the cerebrum; while the brains even
of some of the placental mammals are not well distinguished from those
of reptiles. Although the brain of the Ornithorhynchus is entirely
mammalian, it is more like the brain of a reptile than is the brain
of the Pterodactyle. No evidence of affinities could be adduced which
would outweigh this. Taken by itself it would lead us to anticipate for
the Pterodactyle those vital structures which birds have in common.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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