Re: paleonet Translation of Goldfuss 1845

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-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Everhart <mike@oceansofkansas.com>
To: vertpaleo list <vrtpaleo@usc.edu>; paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
<paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>; dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Monday, December 31, 2001 03:29 Õ
Subject: paleonet Translation of Goldfuss 1845


All,
I've just completed a webpage with the English translation of:

Goldfuss, A., 1845. Der schædelbau des Mosasaurus, durch beschreibung
einer neuen art dieser gattung erlæutert, Nova Acta Academa Ceasar
Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Natura Curiosorum 21:1-28

(The skull structure of the Mosasaurus, explained by means of a
description of a new species of this genus).

The work was translated by Dr. Robert Firestone (ret.), University of
Colorado in Boulder, CO (Dept. of Germanic and Slavic Languages) and is
on the net at:
< http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Goldfuss2.html >

In this often overlooked paper, Dr. August Goldfuss describes the first
known articulated skull of a mosasaur. The specimen is also the first
nearly complete mosasaur to be described from North America.

The work done by Goldfuss (1845) was significant for the fact that it
was the first time that an articulated, undistorted mosasaur skull had
ever been shown. The original Dutch skull (Mosasaurus hoffmanni),
figured by Cuvier, was mostly disarticulated. The skull from what is now
South Dakota provide the first idea of what the head of a mosasaur
actually looked like.

Baur (1892) said that, "... if this important paper had been studied
more carefully by subsequent writers [i. e., Cope and Marsh],
much confusion could have been spared.  Williston (1895) elaborated
further on the subject when he said, "As Baur has said, had later
authorities studied this paper more attentively they would not have
claimed as new a number of discoveries made and published long before,
among which may be mentioned the position of the quadrate bone, the
presence of the quadrato-parietal and malar arches, and the sclerotic
plates." (Here Williston refers to Marsh's (1872) claim that he had
discovered that mosasaurs were covered with dermal plates.  These were
soon shown to be pieces of the bony sclerotic ring around the mosasaur
eye).

At any rate, while it is still a little rough in spots, it does make an
interesting read.  The companion Goldfuss page is located here:
< http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Goldfuss.html >

Regards, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Mike Everhart
Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
Sternberg Museum of Natural History
Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS