American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. i., p. 465.
From Cottonwood Creek.
Crocodilus Elliotii, Leidy.
Cont. to Ex. Vert. Fauna, p. 126.
Represented by a perfect skull, and several vertebræ.
This fossil exhibits a form of skull which shows characters of both crocodile and alligator; the latter to a less marked degree. That it properly belongs to the former genus is shown by the notch in the upper jaw which receives the canine of the lower.
The entire skull is remarkably flat on its upper surface, the face and cranium being nearly in the same plane without the descent at the frontals usual in these reptiles. The jaw is deeply notched at the sutures between the maxillaries and pre-maxillaries, and the second maxillary notch is well marked. All the bones of the upper surface of the head are deeply pitted.
The borders of the cranium are rounded as they approach the orbits; the superior temporal orifices are almost perfectly circular, the fore-and-aft diameter exceeding the transverse by only one millimetre. This effect may, in some degree, be due to distortion.
To give a more detailed account of the several elements of the skull, we take up first the basioccipital. This bone is remarkably long and straight, tapers gradually downwards, and becomes quite narrow at the distal end. It is smooth throughout, and exhibits no rugose muscular attachments, such as are sometimes seen in other members of the order. The condyle is large and nearly spherical, but with median groove distinctly marked. In size and shape it is more like that of the alligator than of the ordinary crocodile, but it is somewhat different from either. It differs from the former, in not having so long a neck distinctly marked by a constriction; and from the latter, in not having additional articular faces on each side of the condyle proper. As far as can be judged, no portion of it is formed by the exoccipitals. Below the condyle the basioccipital is perforated by two small vascular foramina; the spheno occipital canal occupies the usual place, and is very large.
The exoccipitals are large, of very great width, but rather low from above downwards. The position of the foramina which perforate these bones is peculiar; it resembles more the arrangement seen in the skull of the alligator than in that of the crocodile, but it has an additional foramen. There are, then, two small venous foramina near the condyle; while along the lateral margin of the occiput, are placed in a vertical line the foramina for the hypoglossal and pneumogastric nerves, and the internal carotid artery. The foramen for the facial nerve, etc., is situated in the usual place, and is of the usual size. The foramen magnum is heart-shaped, low, wide above, contracting below. The paroccipital processes are long and slender, and project strongly backwards.