Water Reptiles of the Past and PresentWilliston, Samuel Wendell
Science
Water Reptiles of the Past and Present
Williston, Samuel Wendell
Aquatic reptiles; Aquatic reptiles, Fossil
The upper arm bone, or humerus, like most other bones of the
extremities, has been greatly modified by the habits of the different
reptiles. In running and climbing reptiles it is always slender, while
in burrowing reptiles it is short and stout and much expanded at the
extremities, like the humerus of the mole among mammals. And we shall
also see how greatly modified it was among the swimming reptiles.
The humerus of flying reptiles has an enormous process on the side,
corresponding to the attachment of the deltoid muscle. The head of the
humerus, for articulation with the glenoid cavity of the scapula, is
rounded in all reptiles, except the pterodactyls, and the articulation
is always at the extremity. At the lower extremity the protuberance
at the outer or radial side is called the ectocondyle; that on the
inner or ulnar side, the entocondyle. Between the two at the end are
the articular surfaces for the radius and ulna, the capitellum and
trochlea. A little above each of these condyles there is usually, on
one side or the other or on both, a foramen or hole for the passage of
arteries or nerves. That on the inner side, which is characteristic of
all early reptiles and of many mammals, is called the entepicondylar
foramen; that on the outer side, the ectepicondylar foramen; the latter
is present in the lizards, and both are found in the tuatera and some
of the early reptiles.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—Anterior extremity of _Ophiacodon_.]
The radius and ulna are always distinct bones in reptiles, and always
freely movable on each other; they are usually shorter than the
humerus, but in some springing and climbing reptiles they are quite as
long.
The carpus or wrist of reptiles consists primitively of eleven
distinct, irregularly shaped bones, which articulate more or less
closely with each other in three rows. Those of the first row, all true
carpals, are known usually as the radiale, intermedium, ulnare, and
pisiform, corresponding quite with the bones of the human wrist known
as the scaphoid, lunar, cuneiform, and pisiform. The second row has
but two bones, on the radial side, known as the centralia; while the
third row has a bone to correspond to each of the metacarpals, five
in number, and collectively known as the carpalia. Some or indeed all
of these bones may be either absent or unossified, that is, remaining
through life as nodules of cartilage. Seldom, however, are there less
than nine bones in the carpus of reptiles.
The metacarpals, like the digits, primitively were five in number, and
seldom are there less, though the fifth is sometimes lost, and rarely
also the first. They are more or less elongate bones, increasing in
length from the first to the fourth, with the fifth usually shorter.
The first and the fifth are usually more freely movable on the wrist
than are the other three.
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