VIII. On the structure of the mammal-like reptiles of the sub-order Gorgonopsia

Abstract

Over eighty years ago reptiles with a mammal-like dentition were first discovered in South Africa by Andrew Geddes Bain, and specimens were sent to England in 1853. One of these, a fairly well preserved and nearly complete skull, was described by Owen in 1860 under the name Galesaurus planiceps . In 1876 Owen published a Catalogue of the South African Fossil Reptiles, and gave good figures of all the important remains of mammal-like reptiles that had been received by the British Museum up to that date. A considerable number of genera and species were described, and these were placed in three groups, the Mononarialia, the Binarialia, and the Tectinarialia, and the three groups were united into an order, the Theriodontia. Although Owen pointed out mammalian affinities in these Theriodonts it was only some years later that he definitely suggested that the mammals may have been descended from some one of the South African mammal-like reptiles. About the same time Cope, in America, was pointing out the mammalian affinities of the allied Pelycosaurs; and, although forty years ago the scientific world was rather inclined to follow the view of Huxley, that the mammalian ancestor was an Amphibian, the importance of the South African fossil reptiles was becoming more and more realised.