280 S. W. ^N'lLLISTON NEW GENERA OF PERMIAN VERTEBRATES 



related Dissoroplius, must be classed among the oddities of vertebrate 

 paleontology. 



Desmospondylus anomalus — Genus and Species new 

 (Plate 16) 



The specimens representing a peculiar type of reptiles, which I am 

 constrained to regard as new, were discovered by Mr. Paul Miller within 

 a few rods of our camp on West Coffee Creek, Baylor County, Texas, 

 from about the middle portion of the Permian beds. A series of small 

 vertebrae was found partly protruding from the clay, about 6 inches 

 below another specimen of larger size, which was recognized as a species 

 of Trimerorhachis. Many of the fragments of both specimens had been 

 intermingled in the wash, and several hours were spent in carefully 

 removing the clay containing them and washing out the fragments in the 

 near-by Coffee Creek. The bones, fortunately, were firm and hard, and 

 entirely free from matrix, though broken into many fragments. A study 

 of this loose material discloses a large part of a skeleton of Trimeror- 

 hachis and numerous fragments belonging to the present species. The 

 mass of clay taken up with bandages included the series of about a dozen 

 vertebrge, with two humeri, right and left; two ilia, also right and left; 

 a femur and two tibiae, right and left, with a portion of a fibula and 

 several phalanges. In addition a part of a large interclavicle was also 

 found in the clay matrix. In the wash were found another humerus, 

 a femur, two ilia, and a radius, and probably fragments of ulnae and 

 tibiae, all of a slightly larger size, though otherwise agreeing closely with 

 the corresponding bones found in position, or nearly in position, in the 

 matrix. Whether this second specimen had been originally associated 

 with the other in the same horizon, whether it was associated with the 

 Trimerorhachis, or whether indeed it came from still a higher horizon, 

 it is impossible to say. 



In addition to this material belonging to one species, another femur 

 nearly twice the size and more slender in form, though otherwise quite 

 similar, was found a few weeks later associated with the remains of 

 Cacops, described in the present paper. Its horizon was probably nearly 

 that of the present species. From the famous bone-bed of Danville, Illi- 

 nois, Mr. Gurley obtained, a good many years ago, a large and well 

 ossified humerus which has long been a puzzle. Case figured this speci- 

 men, without assigning it to any known genus, in his paper on the Illinois 

 specimens in the Journal of Geology, volume VIII, plate III, figures 4a, 

 4&. It has long been considered an amphibian, notwithstanding the 



