Dinosaurian and Mammalian Remains in South India

Abstract

MY attention has been directed to an article on “Geological Exploration in India—Dinosaur Remains Unearthed” contributed by Dr. Matley to the Records of the Indian Geological Survey, 1929, in which he refers to a preliminary note on the fossil finds from Ariyalur—Trichinopoly Cretaceous area—published by Mr. B. R. Seshachar and myself in the Mysore University Journal (vol. 1, No. 2, July 1927). He writes that this party (zoology students) has been “fortunate in finding a number of dinosaurian bones including a vertebra, ilium, scapula, coracoid, head of a humerus, a tooth with a portion of the dentary, and limb bones, mostly in a broken condition. This discovery is of importance, as it is the first time that Southern India has yielded identifiable remains of dinosaurs.” In the article referred to by Dr. Matley, there is a brief description of the humerus and carpal nodules and a broken amphicœlous vertebra of an ichthyosaurian, besides the ungulate remains of molar teeth of both perisso- and artiodactyles.