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 Eiehen, Switzerland. 

 The specimen, now in the 

 Museum at Basle, was some- 

 what fully described. Eecent FIG. 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 VII. This figure is 

 now replaced by a recent restoration of the skeleton of 

 another Labyrinthodout 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. 



