REPTILES IN GEOLOGY 



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things. They had in them elements wliich are found 

 in all other groups modern and extinct. 



The next three orders of these monsters were 

 aquatic purely — degenerates probably from a terres- 



FiG. 64 



trial form, and were something like the crocodiHans, 

 though they are often thought to come up from the 

 fishes. They all had paddles for limbs, and had tails 

 adapted to swimming. Professor Cope makes three 

 very natui-al orders out of three forms of them. 



The first, Sauroptenj(ji<i^ had whalelike bodies 

 with necks longer than the tails. The Plesiosauriis 

 (Fig. 05) is a type of these. 



The next group of paddle-limbed kinds is called 

 Ichthyopterygia^ because they had a sort of fishlike 

 body (Greek ichthyos — a fish) and a long pointed tail 



