Volume 1

A monograph on the British fossil reptilia of the Mesozoic formations / by Richard Owen.

  • Richard Owen
Date:
1874-1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A monograph on the British fossil reptilia of the Mesozoic formations / by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MONOGRAPH ON THE Genus BOTHRIOSPONDYLUS. § 1. BOTHRIOSPONDYLUS FROM THE KiMMERIDGE ClAY. Species—Bothriospondylus suffossus, Owen (Plates III—V). The subjects of the first section of the present Monograph might be deemed to have more interest for the Anatomist, by reason of the singular modification of vertebral structure which they exhibit, than for the Palaeontologist, as afi'ording evidence of an additional specific or generic form to the already known numerous extinct Saurian Reptiles of the Mesozoic formations. The vertebra, for example (PI. Ill), which, by the presence of pre-(p) and post-(j9') parapophyses with expanded rough syndesmotic articular surfaces;, is a sacral one of the Dinosaurian type, presents so singular a degree of depression, or horizontal flattening, of the centrum, as to suggest artificial and posthumous pressure as its cause ; and it is true that some of the lumbar or dorsal vertebrae therewith associated show unmistakable marks of such violence. But, as the side view of the present vertebra, Plate III, fig. 4, shows, at c, c', there is no such evidence of fracture of the peripheral compact layer of the bone with distortion, causing more or less departure from symmetry in the centrum, as accom- panies every instance of crushing out of shape in the present series of vertebrae (compare figs. 1 and 4, 6'.^., with fig. 5, in Plate V). There is also evidence of a transitional assumption of the depressed form of centrum, in another sacral one (PI. IV, figs. 4, 5, 6), which, from having the syndesmosal surface on a single parapophysis {p) on each side, was part of a terminal vertebra of the sacral series. Four views (PI. Ill, figs. 1—4) are given of the vertebral centrum which appears to correspond with that marked 5 in Tab. V of the ' Monograph on the Possil Reptilia of
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