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On Evidence of two Ornithosaurians referable to the Genus Ornithocheirus, from the Upper Greensand of Cambridge, preserved in the Collection of W. Reed, Esq., F.G.S.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Extract

The fragments of jaws of Ornithosaurs from the Cambridge Greensand show a greater variety in size, form, and proportion than those from any other formation. The largest species were apparently the most singular in the shape of the snout, but after five-and-twenty years of collecting we still seem destined to know them only from fragments which, though extraordinary and suggestive, are tantalizing from their imperfect condition. It is impossible to tell whether the head was short or long, or what proportion it bore to the body, in the oase of these isolated specimens, but some of them, like the jaw-fragment which I am about to describe, show a power of tooth and massiveness of bone which could only have pertained to one of the most destructive and probably one of the largest of these animals.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1881

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References

page 18 note 1 The tooth–sockets are not uniformly of the same size. The earliest of the four is the smallest, and the fourth is smaller than the third. The second socket is 7 millimètres in length and 4 millimètres in width. The teeth appear to have been directed as usual upward, inward and a little forward.