CHAPTER X 



PROTOROSAURIA 



PROTOROSAURUS 



The genus Protorosaurus is of peculiar interest, as one of the 

 first, if not the first, known fossil reptiles, described by Spener 

 as long ago as 1 710 as a crocodile, from fragmentary remains found 

 in 1706 in the Permian deposits of Thuringia. Numerous other 

 skeletons or parts of skeletons attracted the attention of naturalists 

 of the eighteenth century, but were very imperfectly described. 

 No name was given to the animal represented by the various speci- 

 mens until 1840, when Herman von Meyer restudied all the known 

 material and described it under the name Protorosaurus speneri. 

 The position of the genus among reptiles always has been and yet 

 is uncertain, for the reason that the structure of the skull, and 

 especially the structure of the temporal region, has never been 

 satisfactorily determined. Seeley, in 1887, described more fully 

 the original specimen of Spener, now preserved in the museum 

 of the College of Surgeons of London, and because of certain 

 peculiarities which it showed proposed for its reception the order 

 Protorosauria. He thought that he detected an upper temporal 

 vacuity, like that of lizards, but was very uncertain about the 

 structure of the lower part of the temporal region. The writer, 

 who has examined this type specimen, must admit that the struc- 

 ture of the region here is very doubtful. Under the general assump- 

 tion, however, that all old reptiles must be related to Sphenodon, 

 the Protorosauria have generally been classified as a suborder 

 of the Rhynchocephalia. It is merely another instance of the 

 proclivity we all have to propose hypotheses, and then, speedily 

 forgetting that they are hypotheses, to accept them as facts. 



Protorosaurus was long supposed to be an aquatic reptile, but 

 we now know that it was a strictly terrestrial one, probably with 

 climbing habits; and the genus concerns us only by reason of its 

 possible relationships to distinctly aquatic reptiles of a later age. 



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