Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/65

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PALEONTOLOGY and Burgehill. A tooth in the British Museum from the upper Ripple has been described as a new species of barramunda, under the name of Ceratodus Icevissimus, but is now regarded as probably identical with the continental C. kaupi. The existing barramunda, it may be observed, is a large air-breathing fish restricted to the rivers of Queensland. A fossil fish from the Keuper of Bromsgrove, now preserved in the Museum of the Geological Survey, has been described as a new genus and species of ganoid under the name of Deuteronotus cyphus, but is now believed to be referable to some member of the genus Chlithrolepis. The list of fishes closes with Phabodus brodiei, a primitive shark of the group Ichthyotomi, named after the late Rev. P. B. Brodie. This species is known only by two teeth in the British Museum, one of which (the type) was obtained from the Upper Keuper of Warwickshire, and the second from the Lower Keuper of Pendock. So far as the writer is aware, reptilian remains do not appear to have been obtained from the Worcestershire Keuper, but certain tracks met with in these beds may have been made by the Triassic lizard Rhynchosaurus. From the Lower Lias of Brockeridge and Defford Commons, which are situated on the southern side of the county near Tewkesbury, numerous bones of Ichthyosaurus, and perhaps also of Plesio- saurus, have been obtained, but these reptilian remains seem never to have been specifically determined. The British Museum has, however, part of the skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus from near Tewkesbury which has been assigned to Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, and may possibly have been obtained in Worcestershire. In any case, it may be taken as certain that these Worcestershire Ichthyosauri belong to the same species as those whose remains are so common in the Lower Lias of Dorsetshire. The only other vertebrate remains met with in the county appear to be those of Pleistocene mammals from the river gravels of the Severn valley. These doubtless belong to the ordinary species of the epoch. Mr. D. Mackintosh^ recording the mammoth [Elephas primigenius), woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros antiquitatis) , and reindeer [Rangifer tarandus) from a bed of estuarine sand and gravel, and the straight-tusked elephant {Elephas antiquus) and the Pleistocene hippopotamus {Hippopotamus am- phibius major) from an underlying deposit.

  • Quart, Journ. Geo/. Soc, vol. xxxvi. p. i8i (1880).

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