FOSSIL VERTEBRATES — REPTILIA 713 
had only three digits or rows of phalanges. The skull was very 
long and slender and the jaws were slender and curved. The 
whole animal was about twelve feet long. 
The continental forms come almost entirely from the Upper 
Lias, the Poisodonomyen-Schiefer. In Germany large numbers 
of most excellently preserved forms are obtained from near the 
small towns of Boll, Holzmaden, Ohmden, etc., at the foot of 
the Swabian Alps, and from the neighborhood of Banz in France, 
Many of the forms obtained from these localities are specifically 
identical with the forms from the English deposits. From the 
Cretaceous layers of Trichinopolis in the East Indies, and from 
about the same horizon of the same age in New Zealand and 
Australia have been collected specimens of this genus. From 
the Island of Gozo near Malta come fragments from layers that 
appear to be Miocene; if this is correct, the genus extends very 
much farther in time than was originally supposed, but the 
remains are only fragments and the age of the strata is still in 
doubt. 
Opthalmosaurus from the Upper Jurassic of England is known 
only from a few fragments, but is interesting from the fact that 
the jaws were entirely without teeth. The paddle was broad 
and stout with many small phalangeal bones. 
Baptanodon is from the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming. This 
genus was also without teeth. The paddle was very broad and 
the phalanges very numerous. 
The great geographical range, and the large number of species 
indicate the extensive development of these animals in the short 
time that they existed on the earth... That they were fierce 
and predaceous is amply shown by the remains of fish scales 
and bones that are found in the coprolites. 
SAUROPTERYGIA (Plestosauria). 
Aquatic reptiles, generally of large size, with long necks and 
heads of comparatively small size; the body very short and 
stout, ending in a long and powerful tail; the orbits were very 
small and the posterior portion of the skull shows a single tem. 
