Skin of Sauropleura Sp.
Moodie, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XXVI, p. 355, pl. lx, fig. 1, 1909.
The present specimen is interesting on account of the presence of what I take to be a portion of the skin, which is preserved as a smooth mold over the ribs and ventral scutellæ. The skin was undoubtedly that of the back, since the creature is preserved on its belly, and is interesting in not showing the slightest trace of scales or other hard plates. The ventral scutellæ are characteristic of the species of the genus Sauropleura. With one species of this genus, Sauropleura scutellata Newberry, the writer has found associated scutes of some size, and the same fact has been noted by Cope.
Genus SAURERPETON Moodie, 1909.
Moodie, Jour. Geol., XVII, No. 1, p. 80, fig. 23, 1909.
Type: Saurerpeton latithorax Cope.
This generic name is erected for the reception of a single species described by Cope in 1897. The name is made necessary by the wide divergence of the characters exhibited by the present species from those of the species of the genus (Sauropleura) to which Cope ([176]) referred this species. The form is not a member of the genus Sauropleura, for reasons given below.
The species of the genus Sauropleura have a lanceolate head with homodont dentition or nearly so. The orbits are located well back in the skull. The form of the body is elongate and slender and the limbs where known are long and attenuated. The ventral scutellation consists of oat-shaped scutes arranged in a chevron series. The form here described as Saurerpeton latithorax Cope has nearly the opposite of all of these characters, and it is incongruous to locate the form under the former genus. The skull of Saurerpeton latithorax Cope is broad and heavy. The teeth are heterodont. The body is broad and stout and the limbs are of unusually strong proportions. The character of the ventral armature is also of a very different type. In Saurerpeton it consists of very broad imbricating scutes which form a single piece across the abdomen and are angulated to form the chevron pattern which is so common among the Stegocephalia.
Saurerpeton latithorax Cope.
Cope, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., XXXVI, p. 86, pl. iii, fig. 4, 1897.