Arthur Smith Woodward

“ The dorsal fin consists merely of skin without any internal skeleton, while
the tail-fin is expanded in a vertical plane and has the lower lobe stiffened by the tapering end of the backbone, which is sharply bent downwards. Immature individuals are sometimes observable within the full-grown skeletons, suggesting that this reptile was viviparous. ”

“ Henceforth he continued to make important contributions to every department of comparative anatomy and zoology for a period of over fifty years. In the sponges Owen was the first to describe the now well-known " Venus's flower basket " or Euplectella (1841, 1857) . Among Entozoa his most noteworthy discovery was that of Trichina spiralis (1835) , the parasite infesting the muscles of man in the disease now termed trichinosis (see also, however, the article on Paget, Sir James) . ”

“ Marsh’s specimen in Washington supplied the greater part of the skull; and the fore-foot is copied from a specimen in New York.
The cast of the reconstructed skeleton of Diplodocus carnegii measures 84 ft. in length and 12 ft. 9 in. in maximum height at the hind-limbs. It displays the elongated neck and tail and the relatively small head so characteristic of the Sauropodous Dinosaurs. The skull is inclined to the axis of the neck, denoting a browsing animal; while the feeble blunt teeth and flat expanded snout suggest feeding among succulent water-weeds. ”

“ The skull, which must have consisted of hardened cartilage, exhibits pairs of nasal and auditory capsules, with a gill-apparatus below its hinder part, but no indications of ordinary jaws. The anterior opening of the brain-case is surrounded by a ring of hard cirri. A pair of “post-bronchial plates” projects backwards from the head. The vertebral axis shows a series of broad rings, with distinct neural arches, but no ribs. Towards the end of the body both neural and haemal arches are continued into forked radial cartilages, which support a median fin. ”

“ Their bones are of very light, though strong construction, and hollow like those of flying birds, with well-fitting articulations, quite different from those of ordinary reptiles. The head is large and remarkably bird-like in shape, while it is fixed on the neck at the same angle as in birds. The brain is small, but resembles that of birds in its general conformation. ”

“ He prepared an important series of catalogues of the Hunterian collection in the Royal College of Surgeons; and in the course of this work he acquired the unrivaled knowledge of comparative anatomy which enabled him to enrich all departments of the science, and specially facilitated his researches on the remains of extinct animals. In 1836 he was appointed Hunterian professor in the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1849 he succeeded Clift as conservator. He held the latter office until 1856, when he became superintendent of the natural history department of the British Museum. ”

“ It was named Ichthyosaurus (Gr. fish-lizard) by C. König in 1818 in allusion to its outward form, and is best known by nearly complete skeletons from the Lias of England and Germany. The large head is produced into a slender, pointed snout; and the jaws are provided with a row of conical teeth nearly uniform in size and deeply implanted in a continuous groove. The eye is enormous, and is surrounded by a ring of overlapping “sclerotic plates,” which would serve to protect the eye-ball during diving. ”

“ The forelimbs are always a pair of wings, the fifth digit or “little” finger being enormously elongated for the support of a smooth flying membrane (seen in specimens from the lithographic stone of Bavaria) . The wings are thus constructed on the same plan as those of a bat, but instead of four fingers, only one is elongated to bear the membrane. The hind-limbs are comparatively feeble, and must have been of very little use for walking.
The remains of pterodactyles are found chiefly in marine deposits, so that these reptiles must have frequented the coastlines. ”

“ They are, therefore, at least as low in the zoological scale as the existing lampreys, with which Cope, Smith, Woodward and others have associated them. They are all small animals, many of them only a few centimetres in length. ”

“ The small and mobile fore-limbs bear four complete fingers, with the thumb reduced to a bony spur. The pelvis and hind-limbs much resemble those of a running bird, such as those of an emu or the extinct moa; but the basal bones (metatarsals) of the three-toed foot remain separate throughout life, thus differing from those of the running birds, which are firmly fused together even in the young adult. ”

“ At the same time Sir Thomas Mitchell's discovery of fossil bones in New South Wales provided material for the first of Owen's long series of papers on the extinct mammals of Australia, which were eventually reprinted in book-form in 1877. ”

“ The vertebrae are very numerous, short and deeply biconcave, imparting great flexibility to the backbone as in fishes. The neck is so short and thick that it is practically absent. There are always two pairs of paddle-like limbs, the hinder pair never disappearing as in porpoises and other Cetacea, though often much reduced in size. ”

“ The large narial opening at the highest point of the head probably indicates an aquatic mode of life, and there seems to have been a soft valve to close the nostrils when under water. The diminutive brain-cavity, scarcely large enough to contain a walnut, is noteworthy. ”

“ They probably fed partly on fish, partly on insects; but no traces of food have hitherto been observed within the fossil skeletons. The oldest satisfactorily known member of the group is Dimorphodon from the Lower Lias of Dorsetshire. The typical species has a skull about 20 centim. ”

“ No external armour has been found. The reptile doubtless frequented marshes, feeding on the succulent vegetation, and often swimming in the water. Footprints prove that when on land it walked habitually on its hind-limbs.
The earliest remains of Iguanodon were found by Dr G. A. Mantell in the Wealden formation of Sussex, and a large part of the skeleton, lacking the head, was subsequently discovered in a block of ragstone in the Lower Greensand near Maidstone, Kent. ”

“ His lecture on " virgin reproduction " or parthenogenesis, however, published in 1849, contained the essence of the theory of the germ-plasm elaborated later by August Weismann; and he made several vague statements concerning the geological succession of genera and species of animals and their possible derivation one from another. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ Among his writings on birds, his classical memoir on the Apteryx (1840–1846) , a long series of papers on the extinct Dinomithidae of New Zealand, other memoirs on Aptornis, Notornis, the dodo, and the great auk, may be specially mentioned. His monograph on Archaeopteryx (1863) , the long-tailed, toothed bird from the Bavarian lithographic stone, is also an epoch-making work. With regard to living mammals, the more striking of Owen's contributions relate to the monotremes, marsupials, and the anthropoid apes. ”

“ The neck, though long and slender, must have been rather stifl, because the bodies of the vertebrae are nearly flat-ended, while they bear short ribs: it could not have been bent in the swan-fashion represented in many restorations. The other vertebrae are similarly almost flat-ended and irmly united, but there is no sacrum. The ribs are single-headed, and in the middle of the trunk, between the supports of the paired limbs, they meet a dense plastron of abdominal ribs. ”