On Neusticosaurus pusillus (Fraas), an amphibious reptile having affinities with the terrestrial Nothosauria and with the marine Plesiosauria / by H.G. Seeley.

  • Seeley, H. G. (Harry Govier), 1839-1909.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On Neusticosaurus pusillus (Fraas), an amphibious reptile having affinities with the terrestrial Nothosauria and with the marine Plesiosauria / by H.G. Seeley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    On Netjsticosatjrtjs ptjsillt7s {Fraas), an Amphibious Reptile having Affinities with the Terrestrial Nothosauria and luith the Marine Plesiosauria. By H. G. Seeley, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.. Professor of Geograpliy in King’s College. [Plate XIII.] Mr. Julius Hoser, of Stuttgart, submitted to me in June 1881 two of the most interesting Saurians ever diseovered in the Trias. They were found in the Lettenkohle, which hes between the Upper Muschelkalk and the Keuper, in a quarry at Hohencck, near Ludwigsburg, about nine miles north of Stuttgart. These fossils are the materials briefly noticed by Dr. Oscar Fraas in the ‘ Wiirttem- bergische Jabreshefte,’ 1881, and figured as Simosaurus pusillus. This animal is probably the smallest representative of the Plesio- • sauria yet exhumed; but it has a greater interest in exhibiting in the hind limbs all the characteristics of a land animal, while the fore limbs have become padcUes, in which a more striking approxi- mation is made to Plesiosaurus than was previously known in any Triassic representative of this order. Yet, in form of vertebrae and proportions of the vertebral column, in structure of the pectoral : and pelvic girdles and conformation of theii- component bones, the ; Plesiosaurian common plan is so closely adhered to that no doubt can ^ attach to the animal’s systematic position. A photograph showing the condition of the principal slab when first discovered, which was ' taken as a record, in case of accident during its development from the matrix, satisfactorily attests that the bones are in their natural positions, and thus enables us to recognize in this animal a terres- trial Plesiosaurian in process of undergoing those structural modi- fications which would adapt it for aquatic life. This is the first occurrence of a fairly complete Plesiosaurian skeleton in the Trias. None of the remains so admirably illus- trated by von Meyer, and referred to Nothosaurus, Pistosaurus, Conchiosaurtis, and Simosaurus, exhibit tbe skull in association i with the vertebral column, or either with the limb-bones. The < latter, indeed, have only been recovered in isolation from each other; and though the association of bones in certain quarries fully justified von Meyer in his cautious reference to Nothosaurus of the various ; elements of the skeleton, no restoration has been attempted. Even in the admirable analysis of the characters of this genus given by Prof. Owen in his ‘ Palieontology ’ (2nd edit.), the diagram (fig. 90, p. 230) of principal characters represents the fore limb as unknown*. In studying this now fossil we need to remember that the genus Simosaurus is founded upon the skull, of which both superior and inferior aspects are well known f. * Von Meyer would have regarded the limb represented as a fore limb. t Fauna der Vorwelt, Saurier des Muscbelkalkes, pis. 16-20.