Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-23
4 RIDDLE OF NATURE
The Ichthyosaurus Was in
E very Way Unique.
SPHINX OPSEVoLUTIoN
LIFE STORY Or THE BEASTS AN
OPEN BOOK.
But the Story Of Their Origin is Still
a Complete Mys-
+. terry.


Swabian quarries have made regular ar
ticle of commerce of them. They calculate
that they will find a ''beastie" for about
every square rood of excavation.
Buyers are plentiful. Museums, private
collectors, even schools, go there for ma
terial as if they were buying some regular
crop. mo horse trade" says Fraas, is
conducted with more shrewdness and keen
ness than the saurian trade. and no bust
ness requires more knowledge of the tricks
of the trade"
The big supply has forced prices down,
so that. 1t is possible to get an ichthyosau-
rus of the common kinds for from $50 to
$50. OF course, specimens of great scientific
value cost more. The workmen have learn
ed to examine each new find closely to see
If 1t is paw" animal or one with f1ippers.
The creature with paws ranks far be-
yond the cheap ichthyosaurian price list: 1t
is much less common reptile of the Jul
rassic. period, the teleosaurus 1t belongs
to the ancestors of our crocodiles, and. like
them, 1t had "paws'--four regular feet for
crawling, quite different from the ichthyo-
saurus with it's characteristic whales flip
pers
The iehthyosaurus was an oceanic animal.
Everything of animal remnants that has
been found in its company-mollusks, crabs
and fish-is from the sea. Sea creatures
were Its food. We know exactly what Its
pet dishes were.
Pet Ichthyosaurian Dishes.
A black spot between the ribs of many
specimens shows us where the creatures
stomach was; the investigator discovers in
the petrified contents Of that stomach the
distinctive scales of some fish that are re-
lated to our sturgeon and that thronged the
sea in the older times of world story. There
is also the fosslized debris of the hard
parts Of cuttlefsh. Neither today, nor de-
monstratably, at. any time have cuttlefsh
them must have been an inhabitant of the
ocean, like our sperm whale
But how could the ocean have washed
the shores of Swabia in Germany?
The layman still likes to picture the world
of ancient epochs as vast prfmeyal sea.
from which the continents uproSe only very
gradually in the form of tiny islands. But
if this obtained at alt 1T must have been
early In the beginning of earthly things
in the mist Of time. in the period of the
ichthyosaurus thtngA already had become
vastly different
In that day there were no Alps in Europe.
If heaven-ascepdiHg mountains stood at
all in Europe, they must have been in
another part of II possibly in the northeast.
The Swiss Jurassic Sea.
Over the sits. Of 4hef Swiss and Tyrolean
ocean rolled its food. Ifithere was land at
chains of islands at most, probably resem-
bling the present South Sea Islands very
closely-with coral reefs extending far into
the sea, with forests Of tropical fern palms,
over which assembled. here and there the
smoke pillar Of an active volcano.
The deep sea. crowded with animal
swarms. stood over the whole Swabian and
Frankish land of today and it was far in the
northeast that it's mighty waves first met
continental continent which
rivers into it from the east carrying down
mud for the vast alfuvial deposits that
now are visible to us in the form of the
black Jura mountains.
The ichthyosaurianS must have sWum
to this coast even before the beginning of
the true Jurassic period. We find individ-
ual vertebrae in the Triassic deposits of the
Black Forest. With the Jurassc epoch
blue mirror of considerable depth-the
strange guests arrived in steadily increas-
ing numbers.
They must have iived most gregartous
life. Such wonderful massing together
Of creatures as is found in these German
ichthyosaurian catacombs can only be ex-
planned as being due to the fact that the
monsters dwelIed for long period In q
comparatively limited locality, made at
tractive, perhaps. on account of it's ex-
cellence Of food supply.
Struggle for Existence.
OF course it would be entirely incorrect
to imagine the sea~of those old days as
being filed everywhere with great mon
sters. The mass of animal life that swan,
crawled. trampled.. hoped and flew over
this planet throughout all the epochs of
geological time was. no doubt, inconceiva-
bly, vast But these myriads were distri-
tributed through millions Of years, and
there is no evidence that the number of
single forms ever was greater at any time
in any one place than they are now.
Only few persons have clear idea what
immense numbers of specimens of certain
forms of plant and animal life exist now.
Piazzi Smith tells of swarm of medusae
that he saw near the Canary Islands which
he estimated as consisting of 225 900 900 of
individuals. On the Newfoundland and
LOfOden banks more than 323, COO, 900 of cod
fish are taken annually.
If the struggle for existence did not
rule this world, these figures would be tiny
compared with what the fruitfulness of or
ganic nature could produce. Darwin calcu-
ductive of all the animals Of the world,
were left undisturbed by nature and man
for 700 years, the descendants of one pair
Of elephants would number 100000.
But the battle or.9xistence does exist and
has existed as far back as we can CO. And
this great regulating process Of nature ex-
erted it's power In the days of the ichthyo-
saurus. So we needcnot picture the Juras-
SIC Scd DIS q pldCCT " ~ eSo Will iCuluyOSdu-
rians as springtime pond is filled with
.'pollywogs" Rather, the beasts must have
gathered for distinct reasons in certain
limited localities generation after genera
ton. uSy
A Herd Of sIchthyosaurians.
whimsical picture. certainly. must have
been such herd Of swimming '1izards"
The long pointed heads carried powerful
teeth in the beskruke jaws. as much as
200 in number. Yheselcurious teeth sat, not
in separate toothi,eavities, but in long
furrow. Later, ins4he cretaceous period.
there were wonderful birds in North
America that also had such teeth in just
such burrows.
Specifically, as with no other animal Great
ed before or since. stared the eye OF the
fchthyosaurus. That immense eye comprised
not only the huge eye socket itself. but a
surrounding hard ring Of movable bony
plates. that acted Hike most Ingenious
pair Of spectacles. enlS rging or diminishing
the pupile Of the eye at will.
To make room for the google eyes, the
brain was small-a reptile brain Is a still
lower stage Of development than that Of
our whales. which are not q genuine fish,
but merely mammals that have adapted
themselves magnifcently to oceanic exist
ence.
without doubt the ichthyosaurus was a
repule-a lizard In the broader sense Of the