Osteology Of Pteranodon

Author : George F. Eaton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331946120
Total Pages : 634 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (461 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Osteology of Pteranodon, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint) written by George F. Eaton and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Osteology of Pteranodon, Vol. 2 The collection of North American Cretaceous pterodactyls assembled by Professor Marsh at the Peabody Museum of Yale University is numerically very large, consisting of the remains of 465 individuals of Pteranodon as well as seven individuals of the allied genus Nyctosaurus, these two genera from the Niobrara Cretaceous of western Kansas being originally placed by Marsh in the order Pteranodontia. For various reasons it has seemed wise to limit the present memoir to the treatment of Pteranodon, postponing until a more opportune time the discussion of a few additional facts regarding the structure and affinities of Nyctosaurus. Of the great number of examples referred to Pteranodon, a few are complete enough to show new generic characters, but the majority of individuals are so incomplete and fragmentary as to be of comparatively little value. Owing to this condition of the material, it has been found inadvisable to treat each species separately, and the present memoir has been accordingly divided into topics based on the principal skeletal parts. As with one exception the specific names have remained unchanged, an elaborate synonymy is obviated, the only species here recognized that has been known under another name being Pteranodon occidentalism which was first described by Professor Marsh as Pterodactyhis Oiveni (Am. Jour. Sci., June. 1871). As might be expected, in carrying on the work done by Professor Marsh on this group, considerable difficulty was met with at the outset because of the incomplete and fragmentary condition of much of the material first obtained, and from which the types of the species of Pteranodon were necessarily chosen. With this fact in view, it need occasion no surprise that of the three individual specimens originally referred to Pteranodon occidentalism only one, No. 1164, is complete enough to be of any value in the present work. This specimen consists of a right humerus peculiarly crushed, three carpals. and the first and fourth phalanges of the wing finger, together with a few barely recognizable fragments presumably belonging to the same wing. Later Professor Marsh observed the form of the jaws of P. occidentalis in a fragmentary skull, No.1179, and from his notes it is evident that he considered this specimen also a type of the species. P. ingens, the second species described by Marsh, was based upon much more satisfactory material. One of the types, No.1175, is a magnificent but incomplete skeleton, which does not include the fifth digit of the hand, the so-called wing finger. Another valuable type of this species is the large nearly complete skull, No. 2594, to be particularly described in the following pages. The other types of P. ingens consist only of a few poor fragments of wing bones, adding nothing to the characters shown by No. 1175 and No. 2594. When Professor Marsh separated P. ingens from P. occidentalis, the skull of neither species was known to him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.