The Teleosaur was a formidable narrow-spouted
reptile, somewhat resembling the crocodiles of the Ganges in the
external form of the jaws. The modern crocodiles, which replaced
this ancient race of sea-crocodiles, have a great advantage over
them in the fact that their nostrils open into the mouth in its
lower depths. They can therefore close their teeth on their prey
under water and breathe through the nose.
Snakes are not found until the close of the Mesozoic, and do not
figure in its characteristic reptile population. We will consider
them later. But there was a large group of reptiles in the later
Mesozoic seas which more or less correspond to the legendary idea
of a sea-serpent. These Dolichosaurs ("long reptiles") appear at
the beginning of the Chalk period, and develop into a group, the
Mososaurians, which must have added considerably to the terrors
of the shore-waters. Their slender scale-covered bodies were
commonly twenty to thirty feet in length. The supreme
representative of the order, the Mososaur, of which about forty
species are known, was sometimes seventy-five feet long. It had
two pairs of paddles--so that the name of sea-serpent is very
imperfectly applicable --and four rows of formidable teeth on the
roof of its mouth.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285