Jávorka Sándor - Soós Lajos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 29. (Budapest 1935)

Fejérváry, G. J.: Further contributions to a monograph of the Megalanidae and fossil Varanidae - with notes on recent Varanians

„from the Pliocene of Volterra (on the road to Siena) ".

FL PORTIS,

10 after having found the very badly preserved Valdarno vertebrae to be similar to, though not identifiable with those of Crocodilians, referred them, provisionally and with hesitation, expressed by the addition of an interrogation mark, to the „Famiglia dei Varanidi?", a procedure I could not, however, approve of. After a close examination of PORTIS' paper I came to the conclusion that his „drawings in natural size give us almost absolute certainty that no sort of connexion can be proved between the Progonosaurus pertinax PORT. and the Varanidae presenting a totally different structure of the vertebrae and showing already in the lower Oligocène a différenciation corresponding to their present form."

11 So I thought „it best for the present to treat the former genus as „lncertae Ordinis" and eliminate it altogether from the system of the Varanidae.

12 Since that time these vertebrae were thoroughly examined by Baron NOPCSA himself, who went to Florence directly on the purpose to clear up the Progonosaurus problem. The result of this examination is given on p. 37—39 of his book already referred to, being resumed in the last sentence by which he terminates the discussion of Progonosaurus: „Da sich dieses alles bei Progonosaurus wieder findet und Portis in der zitierten Arbeit von Pliochelys aus dem Valdarno auch Schildkrötenpanzer-Fragmente beschreibt die auf das Vorkommen einer sehr grossen Pleurodire weisen, eine sternothaerusartige Form schliesslich auch aus dem Miozän bekannt ist,

13 so scheint es gar nicht unmöglich, dass die als Progonosaurus beschriebenen Wirbel zu Pliochelys gehören."

14 The last point to be touched upon in this part of my paper regards the „Komodo Dragon", in which, according to Mr. DOUGLAS BURDEN'S fascinating field report on the Komodo Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History

15

, „each scale is underlaid by 9 FEJÉRVÁRY, op. cit. p. 545. — Baron NOPCSA (op. cit. p. 37) refers but to three vertebrae. 10 I Rettili pliocenici del Valdarno Superiore e di alcune altre località pliocenisce di Toscana, Firenze, 1890. p. 25—28, Tav. I, fig. 5—7. 11 FEJÉRVÁRY, op. cit. p. 346. 12 PORTIS, Les Chéloniens de la Molasse Vaudoise. Mem. Soc. Paléont. Suisse. Vol. IX. 1882. 13 L. c. 14 NOPCSA, op. cit. p. 38—39. w The Quest for The Dragon of Komodo, Nat. Hist., XXVH, New York, 1927, p. 3—18.