72 
ERIK A : SON STENSIO 
The metapterygoid is attached dorsally for a rather considerable distance to the 
posterior border of the above-mentioned ridge and otherwise the position of the 
metapterygoid in relation to the posterior pterygoid limb is seen from text figure 26 
and PL 4, fig. 2; PL 6, figs. 3 , 4. Text fig. 26 B shows in addition to what extent the 
ventral part of the posterior pterygoid limb was covered by the quadrate. 
The anterior limb of the pterygoid issues along the anterior border of the posterior 
limb and is at the posterior end nearly as high as the latter, which consequently has 
the anterior border free only farthest dorsally for about a fourth of the height. 
As is the case in Carboniferous and Permian Coelacanthids the anterior limb is in 
the species under consideration long and, on the whole, low; only quite close to the 
posterior one does it, as has already been said, attain a more considerable height. Its lower 
margin is concave and rises gently anteriorly. Its dorsal margin is, on the whole, also 
poncave but its course is in detail decidedly more complicated than that of the ventral 
one. Farthest back from the place where it meets the anterior margin of the posterior 
limb it slopes rapidly forwards and downwards for a rather short distance, after which 
it turns in a more postero-ventral direction and forms a marked sinus, open dorso-rostrally; 
in front of this sinus it slopes down again fairly rapidly for a short distance, to continue 
its subsequent course forward wih only a very slight slope downwards. 
The posterior limb occupies such a position that its lateral side faces somewhat 
dorsally and forward, its medial side in the same degree somewhat ventrally and backwards. 
The anterior limb is so twisted that its lateral surface is turned a good deal upwards 
and its medial surface correspondingly downwards, a condition that is more marked 
anteriorly than towards the posterior limb. The pterygoid as a whole'is concave on the 
lateral side and convex on the medial one both in the direction from the anterior end 
to the posterior margin and from the dorsal to the ventral margin. The medial surface, 
apart from the teeth, is smooth. There are no formations corresponding to such ridges 
as are described by Reis (1888) in certain Jurassic Coelacanthids. The centre of ossification 
is situated near the postero-ventral corner of the boundary between the two limbs and 
is covered from the outside by the quadrate. — It seems not improbable that the 
pterygoid of the Coelacanthids corresponds both to the large high entopterygoid and 
to the smaller ectopterygoid of Rhipidistids (Glyptopomus Watson and Day, 1916, p. 11). 
It is really very uncertain whether a dermopalatine has been present as an independent 
bone in W. sinuosa or whether it is fused with the pterygoid. The narrow bone with 
large teeth that is situated beneath the anterior part of the lacrymo-jugal, laterally of 
the anterior pterygoid limb (Mx, text fig. 25; Pl. 5, fig. 4), could perhaps be taken as 
the dermopalatine but on the other hand it cannot be denied either that this bone can 
equally well be taken as a maxillary, as I have provisionally interpreted it here, supported 
chiefly in this view by Wellburn’s (1902, pp. 475—476) statements with regard to 
Coelacanthus and the exposition of Allis, 1919 (1919 a, pp. 379—382). The Macropoma 
specimens described by Huxley (1866) and Woodward (1909) give in this case, as I have 
had an opportunity of becoming convinced, no positive proof for one view or the other. 
The material described by Reis (1888, 1892) shows that an independent dermopalatine 
was undoubtedly present in certain forms, but that it was always very closely connected 
with the pterygoid, so that it might easily coalesce with it; indications of a maxillary 
