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I.—Notes on British Dinosaurs. Part III: Streptospondylus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Francis Baron Nopcsa
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Extract

After having studied a bipedal and a quadrupedal Orthopodous Dinosaur I thought it desirable to turn my attention to a bipedal representative of the Saurischian order.

Though Streptospondylus is by no means an exclusively British Dinosaur, since the type-specimen is preserved in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and was described, under the names Streptospondylus and Megalosaurus by Cuvier and Gaudry, still, the only other specimen known, and by far the best, is in Mr. J. Parker's private collection at Oxford. It is to Mr. Parker's kindness that I owe the possibility of studying and drawing what may be called one of the most complete Theropods ever found, while in the Paris Collection Streptospondylus is only represented by several vertebrae, a fragment of the femur, and the distal part of the tibia with the corresponding astragalus. Mr. Parker's specimen includes the skull, most of the cervical, dorsal, sacral, and some of the caudal vertebræ, the scapulo-coracoid, parts of both humeri, the ilium, ischium, parts of the pubis, both femora, tibiæ, and fibulæ, some tarsal and all the metatarsal bones, and several phalanges.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 2 , Issue 7 , July 1905 , pp. 289 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1905

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References

page 289 note 1 The quite exceptional economic rôle of Dinosaurs during the greater part of the Mesozoic era justifies, I believe, the quite exceptional term ‘subclass Dinosauria.’ The term Opisthocœlia, as recently and persistently used by some American authors, is decidedly a misnomer, for besides being absolutely misleading—since opisthocœlian vertebræ occur among Sauropoda, Theropoda, and Orthopoda—it was originally not even used for a defined group of Dinosaurs, but for what might be called a potpourri of Dinosaurian and Crocodilian reptiles. If one wants to emphasize the fact that Theropoda and Sauropoda form a unit in consequence of their showing greater affinities to each other than to the Orthopoda, cf. Hulke's paper on Dystrophœus the term Saurischia, as clearly defined by Professor. Seeley, is applicable to these reptiles. I desire to protest most energetically against the use of the term ‘Opisthoccelia.’

page 290 note 1 I am fully aware this expression seems a euphemism when one thinks of modern reptiles, but it is not so when one thinks of such vegetable-feeders as Stegosanrus or Triceratops.

page 291 note 1 It is quite a common thing to find in the synsacrum of the Upper Cretaceous Dinosaurs 8–10 vertebrae, lumbosacrals, sacrals, and caudosacrals firmly united. Besides Claosaurus and Triceratops this is also the case in the sacra of two not yet described Transylvanian Dinosaurs.

page 291 note 2 Careful original studies have convinced me that the type-specimens of Poikilopleuron and the Stonesfield Megalosaurus (M. Bucklandi) are perfectly distinct.