On the Femur of Cryptosaurus eumerus , Seeley, a Dinosaur from the Oxford Clay of Great Grandshen
- 1 February 1875
- journal article
- Published by Geological Society of London in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society
- Vol. 31 (1-4) , 149-151
- https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.jgs.1875.031.01-04.12
Abstract
T his femur, presented to the Woodwardian Museum in 1869 by L. Ewbank, Esq., M.A., Clare College, Cambridge, still remains, so far as I have seen, the only example of a Dinosaurian genus from the Oxford Clay which has a general affinity with Iguanodon . As in all the Dinosaurs collected from the great Pelolithic period extending from the Oxford to the Kimmeridge Clays, the articular extremities of the bone show in their pitted surfaces evidence of having had terminal cartilages, though these do not appear to have been so thick as to have modified materially the forms of the articular ends. Thus the bone is devoid of epiphyses. And since epiphysial growths among the lower vertebrates have a definite relation to the activity of the animal type in which they are found, as is shown by their occurrence in Anura and Lacertilia, it would seem likely, since Dinosaurs are to a large extent Reptilian in their osteology, that this condition of the articular surfaces bespeaks animals of sluggish habits, and therefore, it may be, of cold blood, notwithstanding that a not dissimilar condition marks the articular ends of bones in the larger Cetacea. This femur is 1 foot and ¼ inch long, with a slight antero-posterior flexure forward in the lower third of the shaft (P1. VI. fig. 1). The bone is stouter and has its articular ends more expanded, and pertained to a stouter type of limb than the femur of Hadrosaurus or any of the figured American Cretaceous DinosaursKeywords
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