VERTEBRATE PALAEONTOLOGY IN 1908 461 



In the February number of the American Journal of Science 

 (vol. xxv. p. 113), Messrs. Huene and Lull point out that the 

 Triassic American reptile Hallopas victor, regarded by its 

 original describer, O. C. Marsh, as a theropod dinosaur, in the 

 structure of the pelvis is more like an orthopod dinosaur, 

 although in the form of the pubis, the calcaneum, the extreme 

 thickness of the astragalus, the contour of the scapula, and the 

 height of the ilium, the skeleton differs from all known members 

 of that group. In the opinion of the authors (the grounds of 

 which are promised in a later memoir), the genus appears to be 

 most nearly related to Aetosaurus and its allies. 



A remarkable new type of armoured dinosaurs, the Ankloy- 

 sauridce (preferably Anchylosauvidoi) is typified by Ankylosaurus 

 magniventris, from the Upper Cretaceous of Montana, described 

 by Mr. Barnum Brown in the Bulletin 0/ the American Museum of 

 Natural History (vol. xxiv. p. 187). This reptile is related to the 

 Jurassic Stcgosaurus, but is specially characterised by its plated 

 and sculptured skull ; the large, flat, or low-ridged armour- 

 plates of the body, some of which are united to form a continuous 

 shield ; the short-spined vertebrae, with their parapophyses 

 never rising above the level of the centra ; and the fusion of the 

 hinder ribs with the vertebrae (whence apparently the generic 

 designation). The family characters are summarised by the 

 describer as follows : Skull massive, short, and broadly 

 triangular, with dermal plates solidly coossified to cartilage- 

 bones ; teeth stegosauroid, with ovately lanceolate, flattened 

 crowns and crenulated edges ; vertebrae amphiplatyan, solid 

 throughout; neck short; backbone stiff; body broad, covered 

 with heavy armour-plating arranged in rows. Palceoscincus and 

 Troodon, from the Judith River Cretaceous, probably belong to 

 the same family, as does also a dinosaur from the corresponding 

 strata of Canada described under the preoccupied name of 

 Stcreocephalus. 



Turning to our own country, considerable interest attaches 

 to the description by Dr. Smith Woodward {Ann. Mag. Nat. 

 Hist., ser. 8, vol. i. p. 259) of a tibia of the typical dinosaur, 

 Megalosaurus, from the Lower Lias of Wilmcote, near Stratford- 

 on-Avon, Warwickshire. The special interest attaching to this 

 specimen is due to the fact that Megalosaurus had previously 

 been known from the Lias solely by a single tooth in the British 

 Museum from the lower division of that formation at Lyme 



