Description and Biology
Hyphalosaurus fossils are relatively widespread in the Jehol beds, which represent a series of freshwater lakes. Several specimens of H. lingyuanensis and thousands of H. baitaigouensis specimens are known from the Yixian Formation, including entire growth series from embryos in eggs to fully grown adults. H. baitaigouensis was originally reported from the younger Jiufotang Formation, though subsequent study showed that the fossil beds it was found in probably also belong to the Yixian, though from younger rocks and a different region than H. lingyuanensis. H. lingyuanensis and H. baitaigouensis were largely similar in anatomy, both achieved a maximum adult body size of about 0.8 meters. They had small heads with numerous needle-like teeth, and extremely long tails with more than 55 vertebrae. The primary difference between the two species is the number of vertebrae in the neck. H. lingyuanensis had 19 neck vertebrae, while H. baitaigouensis had 26.
Read more about this topic: Hyphalosaurus
Famous quotes containing the words description and, description and/or biology:
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption one sometimes meets with, that physics has one method, chemistry another, and biology a third.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)