SAURO PTERYGIA 



97 



plesiosaurs, and even the astute Cuvier was not very clear about 

 them. Cuvier was the first to call attention to them, expressing 

 the opinion that some of the fossils were of previously unknown 

 animals allied to the crocodiles, lizards, and plesiosaurs. It was 

 von Meyer, however, who first introduced a nothosaur to the 

 scientific world under the name Conchiosaurus. A year later 

 Count George of Miinster described other forms under the name 

 Nothosaurus, meaning "false lizard." Count von Miinster was a 

 most zealous collector of the fossils of the Triassic deposits of 

 Bavaria, amassing, after thirty years of active and enthusiastic 

 labor, a very large amount of material, which, at his death, was 

 purchased by the King of Bavaria and placed in the hands of von 

 Meyer for study. Von Meyer was to Germany what Owen was to 



Fig. 45. — Head and neck of Nothosaurus; photograph of specimen in the Sencken- 

 berg Museum, from Dr. Dreverman. 



England, a man of deep learning, having an extensive knowledge 

 of comparative anatomy, and being thorough and critical in his 

 work. His descriptions and illustrations of these rich collections 

 made by von Miinster are masterpieces of scientific thoroughness. 

 He recognized in Nothosaurus and other allied forms from the 

 Bavarian Triassic a distinct group of semiaquatic reptiles allied to 

 the plesiosaurs, and his conclusions have never been gainsaid. In 

 more recent years additional remains of these animals from Bavaria 

 and other places in Europe have been described, but none are 

 known from other parts of the earth, or from other than Triassic 

 rocks. Altogether about ten genera and about twice as many 

 species have been described, probably all belonging in one family, 

 and all by common consent now classified with the Sauropterygia. 



