THE KANSAS UNIVERSITY 

 SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



Vol. V, No. 15.] MARCH, 1910. [^xv^noTs 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOFT ANATOMY OF CRE- 

 TACEOUS FISHES AND A NEW PRIMITIVE 

 HERRING-LIKE FISH FROM THE 

 TEXAS CRETACEOUS. 



BY ROY L. MOODIE. 



(Contribution from the Zoological Laboratory, No. 191.) 



Plates LX to LXII. 



''INHERE have been, during the past few years, several ad- 

 1 ditions to our knowledge of the soft parts of extinct 

 animals. This knowledge has to do, in large part, with 

 the firmer tissues, such as the cartilaginous portions of the 

 skeleton, the skin, the muscles, but in some cases the kidneys, 

 oviducts, nervous tissues, blood vessels and alimentary canal 

 are clearly preserved. Dean {1 ) has been especially fortunate 

 in the discovery of some of these structures in the sharks of 

 the Cleveland shales of Ohio. He has described very fully the 

 preservation of the kidneys, muscles, skin, the cartilaginous 

 elements of the fins and arches and portions of undigested food. 

 So perfectly are the remains preserved that the tissues, in 

 some cases, admit of histological differentiations into the 

 component elements. Eastman {2) has described the preser- 

 vation of the outline of some acanthodians from Mazon Creek. 

 Woodward {3) has contributed to our knowledge of the soft 

 anatomy of fossil fishes in many ways and has added interest- 

 ing information on the anatomy of the lateral line system of 

 Cretaceous selachians. Jaekel {If), Dean {1, p. 267) and Gill 

 (5) have discussed the anatomy and the significance of Juras- 

 sic and Cretaceous chimaeroid egg cases. Otto Reis {6) has 

 written much on the soft anatomy of various fossil fishes, more 



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