FOSSIL VARÀNlDAE AND MEGALANIDAE. 
3 U 
1903 De Stefano in his before mentioned article believes to have found 
in the phosphorites of Q u e r c y a new Varanian species which 
he describes under the name of «Palae ovaranus Filholi Gius, de Stef.» 
In 1908 Xopcsa published his work already several times alluded to which 
contains a concise synoptical and critical study of the fossil Lacertilia 
of the World-, allowing a general view of the subject, whilst summing up 
errors committed in literature as well as the Varanus- and Varanoid- 
species described up to 1908. Very helpful is the list he publishes of nearly 
the whole literature relating to the afore mentioned Varanus remains. 
To conclude I must yet note Bolkay’s 1 description, published in 1913 
of a European fossil Varanus from the P r æ g 1 a c i a 1 strata of 
Beremend in Hungary (County Baranya), which he designates under the 
name of Varanus deserticolus. However, as morphological considerations will 
later on prove, of the two fossil remains mentioned in his treatise, one 
only, a dentale remnant, belongs to Varanus, the vertebra being that of an 
OpJiisaurus ! 
Before proceeding to the examination of the data comprised in the 
above brief historical summary, I cannot omit mentioning yet a genus 
classed among the European Varanidae. I am alluding to Progonosaurus 
Portis (Prog, pertinax Port.), described by Portis in his paper entitled 
«I Rettili pliocenici del Valdarno Superiore e di alcune altre località plio¬ 
ceniche di Toscana» published at Florence in 1890 (p. 25—28, Táv. I., 
Fig. 5, 6, 7). This reptile represented by four fragmentary vertebrae 
only originates from the Pliocene of Volterra (on the road to Siena) ; 
the remains are in very bad condition; the back surface of the articula¬ 
tion is broken, whilst the anterior one presents the shape of a cava glenoi- 
dea, which circumstance inclines Portis to surmise the proçoelous charac¬ 
ter of the vertebrae, on the other hand one of these is amphicoelous, 
provided with a well developed vigorous diapophysis 2 and defined by the 
author ás vertebra sacralis. This character plays an important part in the 
determination of the systematic position of the form in question ; in the 
foot-note of p. 27 Portis himself refers to this phenomenon observing 
that this vertebra when so placed that the surface of the articulation before 
• it > \ 
1 Additions to the fossil Herpetology of Hungary from the Pannon, and Prægl. 
Period, Mitteil. a. d. Jahrb. d. kgl. ung. Reichsanst., fed. XXI, feudàpëst, 1913, p. 
222-223. 
2 I would like to mention hat in this matter Portis’ description (p. 26); «Tale 
robusta apofisi trasversa (hypapofisi) mostrasi . . .» might easily lead to an erroneous 
anatomical conception, hypapophysis being co m ple te 1 ÿ di f f e re n t to «apofisi 
trasversa»; the drawing shows us clearly (Táv I. Fig. 6) that the bone in question is a 
proc. transversus and not an hypapophysis. 
