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g‘ A YRYER A mn--'d‘
Scientists Puzzled by a Newly Discovered
Curiosity Who Had a Duck’s Bill, 2000 Teeth
and a Gigantic Skull-But No Brains in It!
By W. H. Ballou, Sc. D.
HE 1315 model of disosaur Das arrived at the
| American Museum of Natural History, New
York. sad the sacient monster is & pustie to
e sclentists. His shull is admirably fStted to have
qualified bim for & brain that would have made him
the Edison or fae Napoleon of prebistoric animals
Notwithstanding s encrmous size, It required con
widerable detective work to locate the small cavity
where the brain itself had reposed When this was
found tts size shape and location proved that the braln
that bad flled it had possessed no capacity for think
Sng. and that, apparently, its sole business bad betn
%0 guide the solmal's senses of sight, hearing. taste
end smell, more particularly the last named. Indeed,
#t cannot strictly be calied & brain at all as compared
o any modern idea of what brains are.
About Christmas Professor Barpum Rrows arrived
ot the American Mussum with a carload of fossll
eheletons quarried In the Belly River formation of
She towering cliffs of Red Deer River. southern
Alberta, Canada. - Among other finds were slght com
plete skeletons of gigantic, earnivorous and herbiver
ous cretaceous dinosaurs, forming & world's record
for extinet reptile collecting BSome of these are new
o sclence and the others, belng complete, will practi
cally make new past species, of which only parts had
ever been found. Among the new ones, and the most re
markable, was the one referred to as having no braln.
This sclentific mystery is a crested dinosaur. It has
been named Corythosaurus casuarius. It was an herb
fvorous monster that waded in the Cretaceous marshes
some 1,000,000 years ago. Not only was his every bone
fmbedded in the rock, but most of its hide, which beats
the record of the Siberian mammoth of 50,000 years
ago, with skin preserved in lce.
l-nmm«tlom‘\nhmfldu.
distance the modern cassowary, although & closer
fnspection would have changed matters He was
thirty five feet long. When standing on his hind, bird.
Nke feet, he could lift his head fAfteen feet above
ground and browse on tree follage, practically his
. ie cocupation. His structure was light and frog
like On his head was & great crest. His skoll was
siaped like a Corinthian helmet, and, as it was evi
‘utlymmlmmmhnmu
a 5 & battering ram, like that of a goat now, to butt its
enemies and next 1o break down trees to get at their
Juicy leaves.
“The tall. rounded skull stood thirty inches h'gh
above the neck, and had & diameter of forty Inches.
Attached to it was a huge duck bill, some twenty
seven inches long. In the big jaws were seventy rows
of teeth, urur‘ in batteries, totalling over 2000
teeth. The animal was covered with plate scales,
some rounded, some squarish, averaging one and one
half inches long and one and & quarter inches wide.
J-mhfiodthmem!umum“hno
marshes, where nearly all of them-—those not eaten
by cootemporary carnivorous dinosaurs—perished.
Thousands committed suicide by miring, belng too
Bow tbe Strange Duck-Billed Multiple-Toothed
Bonehead
Corythosaurus
. Qasuarius
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stupid to wade ou! whea the waters arose ia flood Uime
sed enguifed them
The crested anomaly beloaged to » group of the
sarliest disosaurs, so he serves falrly to llustirate the
origin of brains. There is & long period between this
group, having brais only for perve control, and man
with certain contemporary aslmals, haviag brains for
thought and contrel of conduct. Just whea bralse
began 1o think is still & question of discussion. since
scientists place the origin of thought in periods raag
ing from 50000 to 250000 years age according to tae
school to which they belong
Many sclentists deny absolutely, while others be
Heve, that all animal life of today does think and act
sccordingly, to which certaln groups are sow urging
the addition of some plant life. We bear a little less
of “lnstinct” these days as a governing factor in the
dolngs of lower animal life. Whatever walks, crawis,
swims and flles Is now conceded by many to be gov
erned by more or less deliberate thought, by more or
less reasoning power Evea such lusignificant cree
tures (In size) as the ant, the bee and the humming
bird are accredited with more reasoning power thaa
miliions of the lower human belags
The smallest reptillan brala has heretofore been
accredited to one of the largest Jurassic dinasaurs,
Stegosaurus. Marsh, its discoverer, sald that Its brain
was one-hundredth the size of the braln of the modern
alligator, which, in turn, had a bulk 1000 Umes
smaller than that of Stegosaurus. Lull weighed the
brain of the Stegosaurus. He found that s ercalal
cavity was 1.05 centimeters long and 30 ceatimeters
wide, with a total estimated weight of brain of 2%
ounces.
The Enormous Skulls of Use
Only as Living Battering Rams
“The total weight of the animal”™ says Lull, “must
have exceeded that of the greatest living elephants,
the brailn of which averages eight pounds, or fifty
times that of the weight of the braln of Stegosaurus.”
Lull draws a distinction which seems to apply to
all dinosaur brains. He says:
“In comparing the relative potential intelligence of
the twain, one has also to bear !n mind the great
preponderance of the cerebrum over the other parts of
the elephantine brain. In Stegosaurus the cerebrum
constitutes but little more than a third of the entire
brain welght. The Stegosaur brain has a very large
olfactory portion, small cerebellum, large medualla and
4 hypophysis which is remarkable, not only for its
size, but also for the pecullar shape. The sense of
smell was apparently as well developed-as may bave
been that of sight™
The brain cavity of the crested dinosaur tms not as
yet been measured and weighed by equal contents dis
placed In water. It is certain, however, that it must
have weighed less than any yet discovered. In the
same group of trachodonts, however, is the gigantic
Tyrannosaurus, the brain of which is estimated at one
eighth of an elephant's, in a skull seven feet long.
Lucas tells us that “the smallest human brain that is
thought to be compatible with life itself weighs a little
over ten ounces, the smallest that can exist with rea
soning powers is two pounds; this In a creature weigh
ing from 120 to 150 pounds.” He finds that the dino
saur brain in general ranged under one pound, and the
largest one discovered, a two-pound brain in Tricera
tops, the horned dinosaur, equal in weight to man's,
was backed by ten tons of bulk. There can be no
agreement on the weight of dinosaur bralns, because
two sohools of paleontologists differ radically on braln
cases.
The dinossur's drain has recefved full attention at
the American Museum. Mr. Baraum Brown's view is
the last word on all data collected. He'makes it con
siderably larger than the 1;(:&“ at the National
Museum, Washington, have, by reason of greater mate
rial to work on. In a man, for instance, the whole
skull is the brain case. In & dinosaur most of the skull
s battering ram, so arranged as to give fullest effect
to the big horns often carried or to the huge crest or
a frill or beak or other function. The dinosaur brain
was located at the base of the skull, in the centre, con
nected behind with the spinal cord, and its case was
made up of all the bones immediately surrounding it.
How the Dinosaur’s Brain
Wagged His Tail and Ears
The brain itself was always much smaller than the
case, as it floated in liquids. In appearance a dinosaur
brain would have looked like a section of small tree
trunk, with the limbs sawed off an inch or two from
the trunk. From the Brown point of view the brain
ends in each of these projections, or prongs, where the
nervea become surrounded with soft tissue. There
are twelve of these nerve projections, and Brown and
his associates have figured out exactly what each
perve function was, controlled titough the brain
proper. ’
Nerve No. 1 controlled the nose; nerve No. 2, the
eye; nerve No. 3, the muscles of the eye, and No. 4, the
pathetics, principally, in dinosaurs, the appetites. No.
§ was subdivided into three functions, controlling face
and eye muscles. No. 6 related to the abducents, from
the interfor surface of the brain; No. 7 had to do with
the faclales, or superficial facial muscles. No. 8 bossed
the auditorii, or ear matters—shall we say wagged the
ear? No. 9 is termed glosopharyngei—that is, sup
plied the pharyngeal regions of the alimentary canal.
No. 10 is labelled as controller of respiratory, vocal
and heart organs—pneumogastricior vagl. No. 11 is
called accessoril, or having to do with muscles of the
head and anterior vertebrae. No. 12, hypoglossi,
‘formed the motor nerves of the tongue.
It will be seen that, however small, the dinosaur
brain had many functions of control to actuate the
functions of body. Vested in him we see the prob
able origin of the ten thousand things reptiles. and
even mammals do today. His glant tall, used as &
battering ram, has dwindled to a fly brush for cattle,
a wagger for dogs or has been lost altogether, as in
o
i
some deer and radbits. Only In cortaln fshes and sen
mammals do we fad similar tail functions today, as
whalers and many fshermen can amply testify,
The motor perves of the tongue have not been lost.
They were of oo
obvicus walue
the female sex to
st & slanding
among the lost
arts. One by oae
sature dropped ali
other sanctions of
the skull, which
became more and
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more & case for the braln. Horns alone seemed to
survive, but it is doubtful if they are really essen
tial except for ornament and male fighters. The
best cow to<day is the short horm. The female deer
is content to leave such decorations to the male, and
to keep up a fair toilet he must shed his antlers omn
occasions and grow new ones. The rhinoceros of the
horns has to dig in slime of water bottoms with snout
and horn for a living, but he is a freak who,~having
been left out of the Ark, swam tor it and beat Noah
to Mount Ararat,
Another mystery of the crestod dinosaur relates
to the immense number of his teeth. Of these, Brown
ys: “The exact number ©f rows of teeth or charac
t:r of the ename! surface is problematical. There are
visible thirty-four rows in the dentary and thirty-six
rows in the maxillary, or more than 2,000 teeth.”
Cope found practically the same dentition in the
jaws of the glant Hadrosaur, of the same group of
cretaceous dinosaurs, visible to the extent of 2,072
teeth. His explanation of the necessity of so many
teeth by these types of marsh loving dinosaurs is the
one generally accepted by science and likely to endure
undisputed. What he said of the distinct species he
knew can now be applied to the entire group of
trachodonts, or waders:
“The fore limbs were small, and were doubtless used
occasionally for support, rarely for taking hold, as
they are more hoof-like than clawlike. The head was
borne on the summit of & vertical neck and at rignt
angles to it, in the manner of a bird, with the appear
ance of the head like that of a bird.
“The nature of the beak and dentition indicates for
these strange animals a diet of soft vegetable matter.
They could not have eaten the branches of a tree
without breaking the slightly attached teeth of the
ljower jaw. It is difficult to understand how they
could have broken off boughs with weak, spatulate
beaks. By aid of the beak’s dentate, horny edge, they
may have scraped the leaves from the ends of
branches, but the appearances indicate even softer and
less tenacious foods.
“If the lakes supplied abundant aquatic plants, with
out woody tissues, we would have the condition appro
priate to this curious structure. Aquatic plants could
have easily been gathered by the double bill and have
been tossed with bird-like jerks of the head and neck
back to the mill of teeth. In order to submit the food
to these vertical shears, the jaws must have opened
- AR e Y.
Extraordinary Skull of “ nfi';’ » e fi
Crested r 2 o R O S
Dinosasr B i ey
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3000000 %o / A o~ -
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How Some of the Prehistoric Monsters Would Look Wandering Around in Central Park.
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widely enough to permit gheir edges to clear each
other, and a good deal of wide gaping must have
accompanied the act of mastication. This would be
easy, as the mouth opens in reptiles and birds gener
ally to a point behind the line of the position of the
eye.
“The huge hind legs were especlally useful in wading
through the water that produced such food. When
the bottoms were not too soft, they could wade to a
depth of ten or more feet and drag the plants from
below. Fishes, not covered with bony plates and not
too large might also have formed a food supply. Beds
of lignite on lake bottoms show that ancient vegeta
tion was abundant.”
The crested dinosaur evidently was the turkey,
goose, duck and fowl for contemporary carnivorous
dinosaurs, which Prctessor Brown found fossilized
with them, to feed upon. After the crested ones be
eame fat and plump on aquatic or marsh vegetation,
the flesh-eaters marked them for their own.
Professor Brown secured two complete skeletons of
one of these carnivores. It is called Deinodon horridus.
“Deinodon” is Greek for terrible, and this reptile was
well named.
It was the largest flesh eater of the period, about
two-thirds the size of the huge tyrannosaurus, which
came into existence at a later stage. In fact, the
deinodon was probably ancestral to the tyrannosaurus,
which it much resembles.
This creature stood fifteen feet high and was some
twenty five feet long. It was equipped with from
twelve to fourteen teeth in each jaw, each tooth being
an inch wide and some four inches high above the
gums., Powerful claws, like those found in eagles, con
dors and other birds of prey made of this reptile one
of the most dangerous epecimens of his time.
In addition to the corythosaurus and the two deino
don, Professor Brown brought back with him two
monoclonius, one ankylosaurus, one ornithomimus
and one kritosaurus.
Perhaps the most interesting specimen in the new
collection, although the smallest, 8 that of the orni
thomimus, a reptile which was about eight feet lonz
and five feet high and resembled in appearance the
gigantic tyrannosaurus, the larf‘est of the dinosaurs.
The ornithomimus derives its name from the fact
that in structure it was very bird-llke. Its bonesg are
found to be hollow just like a bird’s, and its skeleton
seems to be unusually light in construction for its size
¥
Lo
P the olght dloosanrs whose
I brought to New York bad o
Yorhers would bave been Lreatodho &
tacle
The largest animal which ever tragree
clephant —and even sech vislis a'e rafe oo
siderable interest whea they vocur
A large clophant welghs Sve tons §f
Jumbo, the biggest elephant ever tak g ot
only six and balf toas and stood oaly plev
pigh. Compared with the weighi syt peis
the elzht dinosaurs Lhese Bgurcd wpe sure
comparison gives us some idea of () s
ance of the prebistoric parsde oa =
apt to create.
Take, for instance, the corythors:
This creature wes &s long &y sous o
single fle, and when on all foutsywa b
Ju-b.uowm*"““i*“
This bird-like dinosaur was a fle
have been quite formidable. I 3 ]
with sharp, dagger-like teeth, with a
and aft. In the specimen just unear
teeth had been renewed several tin
which is true of most of the carn
When a tooth broke off it was re
and this process was prob;t!y repe
times before the creature béckime t
A fair idea of what the ankylosa
obtained by sclentists as a result
parts of its skeleton, but ther?
Jearned. The complete skeleton Wk
earthed will now clear up the myst
In many respects the anl’:'rmu
most unique of the dinosaurs. ¥i@ ¥
creature about eighteen feet long ai
diameter. His front legs were on
than his hind legs. While he Wa
was therefore equipped with only
turtle-shaped beak, he was well co
the attacks of the flesh-eaters of hi
His armament consisted of flal,
covered him from head to tail, hi:
united to his vertebrae, and hib ta
club-like affalr, like the tail of the
historic armadillo, and provided a
he could deal destruction to even t
contemporaries.
The two monoclonius included in
will be most highly valued py the s
plete skeleton of the creatyrer p
tained, although some idea of itd ¢
gathered from a restoration complet
The monoclonius is a hoofed qua
usually large and grotesquely Shi)
by horns. The gkull of ihis creatu
length and four feet across the ¥l
long horn over the nose and a sma
eye. These horns were extremel
have been deadly weapons for offe
sense. The brain cavity of thein
that reptile also was of a very Ic
gence, the brain being smaller in
size of the skull than in any Know:
class of fishes. :
Very similar to the corythosau
rus, except that instead of a heilm
with @ huge bory hump on its RoSs,