PALEONTOLOGY 



don scutulatus, a name subsequently changed to Rhombopholis scutulata, 

 the type specimen being an imperfect skeleton in the Warwick Museum. 

 Professor Miall has expressed doubts as to the labyrinthodont nature of 

 this specimen. 



Further evidence of the presence of labyrinthodonts in the Keuper 

 of the county is afforded by footprints in the sandstone, which are com- 

 monly known by the name of Chirotherium or Cbirosaurus, 1 although 

 they were made in all probability by Mastodonsaurus, Labyrinthodon^ etc. 

 In this connection it may be well to mention that these footprints were 

 originally supposed to have been made by animals resembling huge frogs 

 or toads ; and in old works on geology and palaeontology restorations of 

 Labyrintbodon on this model are shown. Such restorations are however 

 altogether erroneous, these ancient amphibians corresponding in general 

 bodily form much more nearly with the salamanders of the present day. 



Of the remains of reptiles from the Keuper of Warwickshire the 

 earliest described appear to be certain teeth from Coten End, Leamington 

 and Warwick, which were named Cladyodon lloydi by Sir Richard Owen in 

 1841. Teeth from the same quarries subsequently examined by Huxley* 

 were found to be very similar to others from Bristol described as Palceo- 

 saurus cylindrodon, and were provisionally assigned to the same genus if 

 not the same species. This reptile was evidently an early representa- 

 tive of the Dinosauria, but the exact relationship of the animal indicated 

 by the teeth for which the name Cladyodon was proposed must for the 

 present remain uncertain. Other dinosaurians from the Warwickshire 

 Trias include a species of the genus Thecodontosaurus (first described on 

 the evidence of specimens from Bristol) and another of Zanclodon (Tera- 

 tosaurus). But this does not exhaust the list of Triassic reptiles found 

 in the county. In 1869 Huxley 3 stated that a peculiar reptile described 

 by himself under the name of Hyperodapedon gordoni was represented in 

 the quarries at Coten End, and in 1893 Mr. Brodie 4 announced the 

 discovery of a nearly perfect jaw of the same creature at this locality. 

 Hyperodapedon^ it may be mentioned, is a Triassic ally of the tuatera 

 lizard (Sphenodon punctatus] of New Zealand, which is the sole living repre- 

 sentative of the order Rhynchocephalia. In the extinct genus, of which 

 remains are abundant at Maleri in Central India, the palate was covered 

 with a number of longitudinal rows of stout conical teeth, between two 

 of which worked the single row surmounting the lower jaw. 



Although apparently less numerous than in the corresponding for- 

 mation of Leicestershire, remains of the two great groups of marine 

 Secondary reptiles respectively known as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs occur 

 in the Lower Lias of the county, nearly complete skeletons being met 

 with from time to time. Of the ichthyosaurs, or the group in which the 

 head is large, the neck short, and the bones of the paddles quadrangular, 

 the species Ichthyosaurus intermedius and /. platyodon have been recorded 

 from the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, and there may be others. 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xvi. 278, xlix. 173. 2 Ibid. xxvi. 46 (1869). 



3 Op. cit. * Ibid. xlix. 173, note. 



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