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

Inspecting the spinal canal in front view, if appears, as stated above, tripartite (see Text fig. 3). This tripartition is due to the very strong development of the cristae laterales canalis vertebralis (KEJÉRVÁRY. 1918) which are debouching from the spinal canal in the form of v-like thickenings projecting from the sides of the upper vault, formed by the neural arch, of the spinal canal and well visible on its anterior limit. The medial part of the vault is about twice as broad as a lateral one, the lateral parts being the front ends of the sulci laterales canalis vertebralis (FEJÉRV., 1918). These lateral furrows are very strongly marked, because of the most prominent keel formed by the cristae laterales dorsally delimiting them, and deeply hollowed into the fusion zone of arch and centre. These furrows, characteristic of other Lacertilians, Varanians, e. g., as well, are apparently the osseous beds'' for two, out of the three, venae spinales — I would suggest to call them venae spinales laterales — which are given off by the venae intervertébrales, the latter opening, in their turn, into the vena cava inferior. Thus the furrows, designated by me as sulci laterales canalis vertebralis should be, more correctly, called sulci canalis vertebralis, pro venis spinalibus lateralibus. The crista medialis canalis vertebralis (FEJÉRV., 1918) appears, in its anterior part, in the form of a large, leebly convex, almost flat triangular prominence, Ihe triangle thus formed being isosceles. The basis of the triangle cannot be seen, for the anterior margin of the neural canal's floor is severely damaged. The point in which the two (lateral) sides of the triangle are meeting is directed caudad, and protrudes into a sharp ciest gently sloping to, and vanishing in, the floor of the spinal canal. A faint indication of the crest again appears at the posterior mouth of the vertebral channel, where it rises abruptly, nearly vertically, into a small, equilateral triangular elevation, separated from the ball by the submarginal furrow designated, here above, as sulcus pericondyloideus centri vertebrae. The two lateral points of that triangle are protruded into very fine, but sharply prominent crests anteriorly delimiting the pericondylear furrow and ending with the two lateral corners of appairently the spinal canal's posterior opening, which are, in fact, the posterior ends of the furrows for the lateral spinal venes, and practically lying already without the real confines of the vertebrae's canal, and though at the very base of the neural arch. The anterior triangle should be termed proeininentia triangularis anterior canalis vertebralis, whilst to the posterior one the name proéminentia triangularis canalis