NO. 1696. AIR-nh'IJATniNG VERTEBRATES— MOOIHE. ]^Y 



evidence has since been brought to light. Until such evidence is forth- 

 coming the absence of scutes will be taken as one of the generic char- 

 acters of the genus Tuditanus. Under a magnification of 50 diame- 

 ters the carbonized skin shows folds and wrinkles like muscle fibers in 

 some places ; in others no traces of the muscular structure can be de- 

 tected. The wrinkles may be impressions of the internal musculature 

 of the body wall of the abdomen. It is especially well preserved in 

 the pelvic and P3^gal regions. Sections of the coal were made, but 

 nothing definite could be determined as to the character of the im- 

 pressions, as they were too poorly preserved and the coal too soft to 

 bear much handling. 



The specimen is preserved on the belly with the dorsum of the 

 skull uppermost. It has been practically impossible to determine the 

 arrangement of any of the cranial elements except the frontals, parie- 

 tals, and the supraoccipitals which have the relations indicated in 

 Plate 7, fig. 1. A median suture is clearly evident, with the pineal 

 foramen Avell back in this suture. The bones of the skull are marked 

 with faint, radiating lines. It is in the form of the skull and the po- 

 sition of the orbits that the specific characters are found. These are 

 the backward position of the eyes and in the oval, pointed shape of 

 \ the skull. . The species is closely related to Tuditanus minimus Moodie 

 from the Cannelton slates of Pennsylvania, and serves further to con- 

 nect the forms from the Ohio and Pennsylvania localities. It differs 

 from the last-named species in the position and form of the orbits, 

 these structures being more oval in the present form and placed far- 

 ther back. The shape of the skull differs also in the almost entire 

 absence of the posterior table. The median points of the orbits 

 occupy the line which bisects the skull. The interorbital width is 

 less than the length of the orbit. The mandible is heavy and apj^ears 

 to have borne sharp pleurodont teeth. 



The vertebral colunni is little more than a mold of the form of the 

 vertebrse, so that little can be said of its character. The individual 

 vertebrae are short and hour-glass shaped. The ribs are borne inter- 

 centrally, as in all the microsaurians which have been studied from 

 the Linton deposits. The ribs are rather long and somewhat heavy, 

 slightly curved and exj)anded at the proximal end as though an 

 incipient bicipital condition were present. 



The right clavicle, which is preserved as an impression, is entire. 

 Its impression shows this element to have been ornamented on its 

 ventral surface with radiating grooves and ridges which started at 

 the lower angle of the bone. The element is distinctly triangular, 

 which is characteristic of the genus Tuditanus^ so far as known. The 

 fragment of the left clavicle adds nothing to our knoAvledge of the 

 element. 



Proc.N.M.vol.37— 09 2 



