Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:24:57.447Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VII.—The Middle Devonian Fish Fauna of Achanarras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2012

C. Forster-Cooper
C. Forster-Cooper
Affiliation:
Director of the University Museum of Zoology, Reader in the Vertebrata, and Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During five seasons the writer has been investigating the fishes of the Middle Devonian flagstones in the quarry at Achanarras in Caithness. This celebrated quarry, the home of Palœospondylus, has been long known and has been previously worked by Traquair (1890, 1894), who has described its fauna. There appeared, however, still to be room for a more detailed and intensive examination of the fauna such as could only be produced by a more extended period of work than had so far been given to it. By permission of Colonel Murray-Thriepland, the owner of the estate on which the quarry is situated, I have been able to spend the seasons of 1931–1935 in making a collection, of which a part is now to be described. To the Colonel and to his son Mr Peter Murray-Thriepland I have been indebted throughout for their unfailing interest and assistance. The main part of this account was written in 1934, but was not published owing to the discontinuance of a foreign journal for which it had been accepted. The season of 1935 produced some further material, which has now been incorporated. Meanwhile the writer has had the opportunity of discussing questions relating to the genus Dipterus with Dr Stanley Westoll, who has in preparation a work on the Devonian fishes in general, and is indebted to him for information on several points. Dr Westoll's view that the scales show an alternate deposition and resorbtion of the outer layer together with its bearing on questions of species is here fully adopted (Westoll, 1935).

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1937 , pp. 223 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1937

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References to Literature

Agassiz, L., 1844. Monographie des poissons fossiles du vieux grès rouge, Neuchatel.Google Scholar
Goodrich, E. S., 1903. “On the Dermal Fin Rays of Fishes,” Q. Journ. Mier. Sci., vol. xlvii, pp. 465–522.Google Scholar
Goodrich, E. S., 1907. “On the Scales of Fish, Living and Extinct,” Proc. Zool. Soc., pp. 751–773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodrich, E. S., 1909. Vertebrata Craniata, London.Google Scholar
Goodrich, E. S., 1925. “On the Cranial Roofing Bones in the Dipnoi,” Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond., vol. xxxvi, pp. 79–160.Google Scholar
Goodrich, E. S., 1930. Studies on the Structure and Development of Vertebrates, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham-Smith, W., 1936. “The Tail of Fishes,” Proc. Zool. Soc., pp. 596–608.Google Scholar
Pander, C. H., 1858. Uber die Ctenodipterinen des Devonisches Systems, St. Petersburg.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, W. N., 1892. “On the Anatomy and Physiology of Protopterus annectens ,” Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. xxx, pp. 109–230.Google Scholar
Säve-Söderbergh, G., 1932. “Preliminary Note on Devonian Stegocephalians from East Greenland,” Medd. om Grönland, vol. xciv, pp. 1–105.Google Scholar
Säve-Söderbergh, G., 1933. “The Dermal Bones of the Head and the Lateral Line System in Osteolepis macrolepidotus ,” Nov. Act. Reg. Soc Sci. Upsaliensis, ser. iv, vol. ix, pp. 1–129.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, A., and Murchison, R. I., 1828. Trans. Geol. Soc, vol. iii, p. 143.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1878. “On the genera Dipterus, etc.,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, vol. ii, pp. 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1888. “Notes on the Nomenclature of the Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of Great Britain,” Geol. Mag., vol. v, pp. 507–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1889. “On a New Species of Dipterus ,” Geol. Mag., vol. vi, pp. 97–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1890. “On the Fossil Fishes found at Achanarras Quarry,” Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. vi, pp. 79–486.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1890. “Fossil Dipnoi and Ganoids of Fife and the Lothians,” Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xvii, pp. 2–16.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1894. “Achanarras revisited,” Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., vol. xii, pp. 280–286.Google Scholar
Traquair, R. H., 1896. “Extinct Vertebrata of the Moray Firth Area,” in Harvey Brown, J. A., and Buckley, T. E., Vertebrate Fauna of the Moray Basin, vol. ii, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. S., and Day, H., 1916. “Notes on some Palaeozoic Fishes,” Mem. Proc. Lit. Phil. Soc. Manch., vol. lx, pp. 1–48.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. S., and Gill, E. L., 1923. “The Structure of certain Palaeozoic Dipnoi,” Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond., vol. xxxv, pp. 163–216.Google Scholar
Watson, D. M. S., 1926. “The Evolution and Origin of the Amphibia,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., vol. ccxiv, pp. 189–257.Google Scholar
Westoll, T. S., 1936. “On the Structure of the Dermal Ethmoid Shield of Osteolepis,” Geol. Mag., vol. lxxiii, pp. 157–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, A. S., 1891. Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum, pt. ii.Google Scholar