ANCIENT SALAMANDERS 103 
long-limbed lizards ; some have short limbs. Others, like Ptyonius 
(see Plate VIII.), were very elongate. The members of the 
Labyrinthodont order flourished over a large part of the earth’s 
surface, from the time of the coal-forests to that of the Triassic 
sandstones. Their remains are found in all the great conti- 
nents. The late Professor Seeley considered them to have been 
the ancestors of the crocodiles. Large skulls of Labyrinthodonts, 
such as Mastodonsaurus and Capitosaurus, have for a long time 
past been found in the Upper Triassic (Keuper) strata of Germany. 
They appear to resemble very 
closely a generalised Anomo- 
dont (see next Chapter). 
In the writer’s previous work, 
Creatures of Other Days, p. 70, 
he reproduced a restoration of 
the skeleton of Labyrinthodon 
by Professor Wiedersheim, based 
on a discovery made in the year 
1864 in Riehen, Switzerland. 
The specimen, now in the 
Museum at Basle, was some- GS i 
what fully described. Recent Fic. 25.—Skull of a Labyrinthodont, 
Cyclotosaurus (under side). 
researches have shown that the 
interpretation given by Wiedersheim was wrong, and that the 
bones (rather badly preserved), represent a reptile of the 
Anomodont order, described in Chapter VIJ. This figure is 
now replaced by a recent restoration of the skeleton of 
another Labyrinthodont amphibian, viz. the Amphibamus of 
Mr. R. L. Moodie. Let the reader compare this with the 
skeleton of a true reptile, and he will at once see how 
primitive it is. 
