In the Caudata and Apoda, cartilage often persists between the vertebrae; this cartilage may become imperfectly separated into a cup-and-ball portion, the cup belonging to the posterior end of the vertebra. In such cases the distinction between amphicoelous and opisthocoelous vertebrae rests merely on a question of ossification, and has occasionally given rise to misunderstandings in the use of these terms.
| Fig. 5.—Necturus. Posterior (A) and ventral (B) views of the sacral vertebrae (S.V.); S.R.1, S.R.2, sacral ribs; Il, ilium; Is, ischium. | Fig. 6.-Vertebral column of Hymenochtrus (ventral view). |
Amphicoelous (bi-concave) vertebrae are found in the Apoda and in some of the Caudata; opisthocoelous (convexo-concave) vertebrae in the higher Caudata and in the lower Ecaudata; whilst the great majority of the Ecaudata have procoelous (concavo-convex) vertebrae.
| Fig. 7.—Chondrocranium of Rana esculenta—ventral aspect. |
| rp, The rhinal process. pnl, The praenasal processes. an, The alinasal processes, shown by the removal of part of the floor of the left nasal chamber. AO., The antorbital process. pd, The pedicle of the suspensorium continued into cv, the ventral crus of the suspensorium. cd, Its dorsal crus. tt, The tegmen tympani. SE, The sphen-ethmoid. EO., The exoccipitals. Qu.J., The quadratojugal. II. V. VI. Foramina by which the optic, trigeminal and abortio dura, and abducens nerves leave the skull. |
All living batrachians, and some of the Stegocephalia, have transverse processes on the vertebrae that succeed the atlas (fig. 4), some of which, in the Caudata, are divided into a dorsal and a ventral portion. Ribs are present in the lower Ecaudata (Discoglossidae and larval Aglossa), but they are never connected with a sternum. It is in fact doubtful whether the so-called sternum of batrachians, in most cases a mere plate of cartilage, has been correctly identified as such. When limbs are present, one vertebra, rarely two (fig. 5) or three, are distinguished as sacral, giving attachment to the ilia. In the Ecaudata, the form of the transverse processes of the sacral vertebra varies very considerably, and has afforded important characters to the systematist. In accordance with the saltatorial habits of the members of this order, the vertebrae, which number from 40 to 60 in the Caudata, to upwards of 200 in the Apoda, have become reduced to 10 as the normal number, viz., eight praecaudal, one sacral and an elongate coccyx or urostyle, formed by coalescence of at least two vertebrae. In some genera this coccyx is fused with the ninth vertebra, and contributes to the sacrum, whilst in a few others the number of segments is still further reduced by the co-ossification of one or two vertebrae preceding that corresponding to the normal sacral and by the fusion of the two first vertebrae, the extreme of reduction being found in the genus Hymenochirus, the vertebral column of which is figured here (fig 6.)
| Fig. 8.—The skull of Ichthyophis glutinosus A, Dorsal; B, ventral; C, lateral view. The letters have the same signification as below. |
As stated above in the definition of the order, the Stegocephalia have retained most of the cranial bones which are to be found in the Crossopterygian fishes, and it is worthy of note that the bones termed post-temporals may give attachment to a further bone so prolonged backwards as to suggest the probability of the skull being connected with the shoulder-girdle, as in most teleostome fishes. This supposition is supported by a specimen from the Lower Permian of Autun, determined as Actinodon frossardi, acquired in 1902 by the British Museum, which shows a bone, similar to the so-called “epiotic cornu” of the microsaurians, Ceraterpeton and Scincosaurus, to have the relations of the supra-cleithrum of fishes, thus confirming a suggestion made by C.W. Andrews (28). As in fishes also, the sensory canal system must have been highly developed on the skulls of many labyrinthodonts, and the impressions left by these canals have been utilized by morphologists for homologizing the various elements of the cranial roof with those of Crossopterygians. The pineal foramen, in the parietal bones, is as constantly present as it is absent in the other orders. Although not strictly forming part of the skull, allusion should be made here to the ring of sclerotic plates which has been found in many of the Stegocephalia, and which is only found elsewhere in a few Crossopterygian fishes as well as in many reptiles and birds.
In the orders which are still represented at the present day, the bones of the skull are reduced in number and the “primordial skull,” or chondrocranium (fig. 7), remains to a greater or less extent unossified, even in the adult. Huxley’s figures of the skull of a caccilian (Ichthyophis glutinosus), fig. 8, of a perennibranchiate urodele (Necturus maculosus = Menobranchus lateralis), fig. 9, and of a frog (Rana esculenta), fig. 10, are here given for comparison.
The skull, in the Apoda, is remarkably solid and compact, and it possesses a postorbital or postfrontal bone (marked 1 in the figure) which does not exist in any of the other living batrachians. The squamosal bone is large and either in contact with the frontals and parietals or separated from them by a vacuity; the orbit is sometimes roofed over by bone. The presence, in some genera, of a second row of mandibular teeth seems to indicate the former existence of a splenial element, such as exists in Siren among the Caudata and apparently in the labyrinthodonts.
In the Caudata, the frontals remain likewise distinct from the parietals, whilst in the Ecaudata the two elements are fused into one, and in a few forms (Aglossa, some Pelobalidae) the paired condition of these bones has disappeared in the adult. Prefrontal bones are present in the Salamandridae and Amphiumidae, but absent (or fused with the nasals) in the other Caudata and in the Ecaudata. In most of the former the palatines fuse with the vomers, whilst they remain distinct, unless entirely lost, in the latter. The vomer is single, or absent, in the Aglossa. In the lower jaw of most of the Ecaudata the symphysial cartilages ossify separately from the dentary bones, forming the so-called mento-meckelian bones; but these symphysial bones, so distinct in the frog, are less so in the Hylidae and Bufonidae, almost indistinguishable in the Pelobatidae and Discoglossidae, whilst in the Aglossa they do not exist any more than in the other orders of batrachians.