SAVRO PTERYGIA 



87 



broad bones in place of the elongated forearm and leg bones of the 

 land reptiles. Not only are these bones much broader than they 

 are long, but there have been developed additional bones back of 

 them in the same row — new bones which have no counterpart in 

 any terrestrial reptiles. In the first of the three figures is sh(jwn 

 a hind paddle of one of the earliest known plesiosaurs, Thauma- 

 losaurus, from the lower part of the Jurassic of Germany. It will 

 be seen here that the tibia and fibula are much more elongated than 

 in Trinacromerum, and much more like the leg bones of land reptiles. 

 A still more primitive stage in the evolution of the swimming paddle 

 of the plesiosaurs will be seen in Fig. 48 on p. 99, the possibly 

 ancestral, amphibious nothosaur. Here the tibia and fibula, while 

 relatively very much shorter than in any land reptile, still have, 

 together with all the other 

 bones of the leg, a terrestrial 

 or amphibious type. In Fig. 

 39 is seen the front paddles 

 of the long-necked Elasmo- 

 saurus, which, though one of 

 the latest of all plesiosaurs in 

 geological history, has the 

 structure of its paddles some- 

 what intermediate between 



that of the earlier Plcsiosaurus and the later Trinacromerum. 

 The skull of the long-necked plesiosaurs is surprisingly small 

 in comparison with the remainder of the skeleton, often very 

 snake-hke in shape, though very un-snake-like in structure. The 

 short-necked plesiosaurs had often a relatively larger skull, in Plio- 

 saurus, for instance, more than five feet long, sometimes rather 

 broad and short, sometimes remarkably long and slender. The 

 external nostrils were situated far back, very near the eyes, and 

 were very small. The eyes, of considerable size, though by no 

 means so large as those of the ichthyosaurs, were directed laterally, 

 and were provided with a ring of bony sclerotic plates — rather 

 small and weak ones, however. The quadrate bones — bones pecu- 

 liar to the reptiles and birds — to which the lower jaws are articu- 

 lated, are, as in the ichthyosaurs and crocodiles, rigidl}- li\ed and 



Fig. 40. — Skull of Elasmosannis 

 side: pm. |)remaxilla; ;w, maxilla; 

 orbital; j, jugal. 



from the 

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