SQUAMATA 



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For some years the few specimens discovered 

 by Drouin and Hofmann were all that were 

 known of the mosasaurs. A few others of 

 related forms were discovered in England, and 

 some were reported from New Jersey by early 

 explorers, but there was little published about 

 the mosasaurs till 1843, when Dr. August Gold- 

 fuss, a noted German paleontologist, described 

 and beautifully figured an excellent specimen 

 from the United States. This specimen also 

 had a rather eventful history. It was dis- 

 covered early in the fourth decade by Major 

 O'Fallen, an Indian agent, near the Great Bend 

 of the Missouri River, whence it was trans- 

 ported by him to St. Louis and placed in his 

 garden as a curiosity. It happened that Prince 

 Maximilian of Wied, the famous naturalist, in 

 his travels through the United States, saw the 

 specimen and secured it, taking it to Germany 

 on his return. He presented it to the Museum 

 of Haarlem where Goldfuss saw and described 

 it. Rather oddly, this specimen was of a 

 species closely allied to the original one of 

 Maestricht, a species which has since only 

 rarely been found. It was called Mosasaurus 

 maximiliani by Goldfuss, though some time 

 previously, it has since been found, some frag- 

 ments of the same species were described by 

 Harlan, an American author, under the name 

 Ichthyosaurus mis sour iensis. Goldfuss' paper 

 was strangely overlooked by subsequent 

 writers, and it was not till the discovery of 

 numerous remains of mosasaurs by Leidy, 

 Cope, and Marsh in the chalk of western 

 Kansas, nearly thirty years later, that much 

 was added to the world's knowledge of these 

 strange reptiles. 



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