AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE FOSSIL REPTILIA. 
189 
conclusions are drawn from the larger bones of the limbs. And the hand and foot 
both show Lacertilian characters. There is no dermal skeleton. This description is 
the basis of most accounts of the animal which have been published. I find no 
difference from von Meyer possible except perhaps as to the reference of the remains 
to one species, and as to the absence of a dermal skeleton. 
Sir Richard Owen, first noticed Protorosaurus Speneri in his ‘ Odontography,’ 
and subsequently, in his ‘Catalogue of the Fossil Reptiles and Fishes in the Royal 
College of Surgeons’ (1854, p. 80), mentions that the specimen there preserved is 
Spener’s type, which passed into the collection of Dr. John Woodward, and was 
purchased by John Hunter at the sale of Humphrey’s Museum. t In Sir Richard 
Owen’s ‘Palaeontologyit is stated that the head equals one-third the length of the 
neck and trunk, and resembles in shape a long, slender, obtusely-pointed cone. It has 
strong straight jaws, armed with sub-slender, sub-equal, straight, conical, sharp-pointed 
teeth ; about eighteen on each side of the upper, and sixteen on each side of the 
lower jaw, implanted in a single close-set series of sockets. After describing the 
remainder of the skeleton, it is remarked : “ Of existing Reptiles the largest carnivorous 
Varanian Monitors (e.g., Varanus, Ilgdrosaurus) offer most resemblance to the 
Protorosaurus, which had evidently the same powers of progression, as well on land 
as in the water. But this oldest known Lizard presented a more powerful and complex 
framework. The neck is longer and stronger, the vertebrae rivalling in proportion 
those of Pterodactyles ; the head is relatively larger and with more fir ml y fixed 
teeth ; the dorsal spines are loftier and larger than in modern Monitors ; the larger 
sacrum accords with the relatively larger and stronger hind limbs. The more 
numerous diverging processes for the attachment of the tail muscles bespeak the more 
vigorous actions of that part. All the vertebral bodies have sub-concave articular 
ends, and it may be concluded from the length and strength of the tail, from the 
peculiar provision for muscular attachments in that part, and from the proportions of 
the hind limbs that the Protorosaurus was of aquatic habits, and that the strength 
of its neck and head, and the sharpness of its teeth, enabled it to seize and overcome 
the struggles of the active fishes of the waters which deposited the old Thuringian 
copper slates.” This animal was referred provisionally, and with doubt, to the order 
Thecodontia. But some evidence has since been adduced by Professor Huxley to 
show that Thecodontosaurus and Palceosaurus may be classed with Dinosaurs ; so 
that, if the Thecodontia should be sustained as a group distinct from the Parasuchia, 
which appears to be synonymous, the suggested affinities would indicate that 
Protorosaurus, although written of as a Lizard, was regarded as approximating to 
Dinosaurs and their Crocodilian allies. I find myself, however, differing from Sir 
Richard Owen as to the condition of the teeth, for I can detect no conclusive 
* Vol. 1, p. 269. 
t ‘ Descrip. Cat. Fossil Rept. and Pisces,’ 1854, p. 80. 
X P. 280, 2nd ed., 1861. 
