1 62 THE COAL MEASURES AMPHIBIA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Sauropleura enchodus Cope. 

 COPE, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., p. 406, 1885 (Anisodexis). 



Type : Specimen No. (51) 2558, American Museum of Natural History, Newberry 

 Collection. 



Horizon and locality: Discovered by Sam Huston at the Linton, Ohio, Coal 

 Measures. 



An examination of the type specimen (plate 16, fig. 4) of this form resulted in no 

 new facts. The reference of the species to the Permian genus Anisodexis by Cope 

 is probably incorrect. Our knowledge of the two known species of this genus is not 

 sufficient to separate them, but for the sake of convenience the Linton species is 

 placed in the genus Sauropleura. It is located here principally on account of the 

 form and structure of the teeth. Cope's original description is given below: 



"The generic characters are apparent in the very unequally sized teeth with round 

 section. The portion upon which the species is based is a part of the right ramus of the 

 mandible, which is in the specimen viewed from the inner side. The jaw is obliquely and 

 smoothly truncated from below, for the symplrysis and surface of the bone is smooth. 

 There is a very large tooth near the extremity of the dentary bone. Behind it is an interval 

 equal to three times the diameter of its base, which is followed by a tooth of about one- 

 third the length of the first tooth. Posterior to this one are two teeth of the same size as 

 the second, all being separated from each other by about a tooth's diameter. These are 

 followed by three subequal teeth of about two-thirds the length of the first tooth, and 

 separated by about their own diameter from each other. They are all perfectly straight, 

 very acute, and without the trace of a cutting-edge. The inflection-grooves extend to or 

 a little beyond the middle of the length." 



The present species is smaller than the type of Anisodexis imbrecarius from the 

 Texas Permian, to which genus Cope originally referred the present species, and the 

 apices of the teeth do not display the opposite cutting-edges seen in the Texas form. 



MEASUREMENTS OF THE TYPE SPECIMEN. 



mm. mm. 



Length of jaw, including 7 teeth. .. .111 Length of third tooth. . .V5 



Depth of ramus at second tooth . . 10 Length of sixth tooth. 7o 



Length of first tooth 10.5 



SKIN OF SAUROPLEURA SP. 

 MOODIE, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., xxvi, p. 355, pi. Ix, fig. I, 1909. 



The present specimen is interesting on account of the presence of what I take to 

 be a portion of the skin, which is preserved as a smooth mold over the ribs and ven- 

 tral scutella?. The skin was undoubtedly that of the back, since the creature is 

 preserved on its belly, and is interesting in not showing the slightest trace of scales 

 or other hard plates. The ventral scutellae are characteristic of the species of the 

 genus Sauropleura. With one species of this genus, Sauropleura scuteUata Newberry, 

 the writer has found associated scutes of some size, and the same fact has been 

 noted by Cope. 



Genus SAURERPETON Moodie, 1909. 

 MOODIE, Jour. Geol., xvn, No. i, p. 80, fig. 23, 1909. 



Type: Saurerpeton latithorax Cope. 



This generic name is erected for the reception of a single species described by 

 Cope in 1897. The name is made necessary by the wide divergence of the charac- 

 ters exhibited by the present species from those of the species of the genus (Sauro- 



