PREHISTORIC MONSTERS.

North Otago Times, 22 May 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

PREHISTORIC MONSTERS.

j Of all the wonderful animals rcvcaljccl by their-petrified remains, says I Dr. E. C. Case, perhaps the most striking aro the reptiles. The reptiles made their first appearance in the Permain, or in the latter portion of the Carboniferous preceding, but here at the very inception of their line they developed a IJrent diversity of form and iiab.it. There were aquatic and terrestrial forms, carnivorous (flesh-eating), herbivorous (plant-eating), and omnivorous (eating both animal and vegetable foods) forms, forms simple and closely resembling their amphibian ancestors and forms so bizarre in their structure that the world has produced nothing more strange. The reptiles descended from the amphibians, and it is natural to look in these beds, where the lowest of the reptiles are found, for the connecting link between the two, but as yet this form has not been discovered; the approach from both sides, however, is so close that it is frequently impossible to determine the nature ■of a specimen from a single bone or small portion of the skeleton. How Our Hcptiles Havo Evolved-The simplest of the early carnivorous reptiles are aquatic, living in the waters of the great rivers, or perhaps even in the ocean. The body was long and slender and the tail was exceptionally so, in correlation with the swimming habit. Aside from the more technical points, the interest in the development of the primitive reptiles centres in certain changes of the teeth and the dorsal spines of the vertebrae. In one of the simplest forms, Poliosaurus, the teeth gave the form of simple cones | of nearly equal size in all parts of j the jaw; such a dentitaion indicates that it preyed upon small animals, which it seized and swallowed whole, | after the manner of snakes and many _ lizards, The dorsal spines are low ' and do not project beyond the skin. { Tho animal probably resembled very | closely the living monitor of tho Nile.-'Topular Science Sittings.'}