. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). J. A. MOY-THOMAS 133. Fig. 1 J. A. Moy-Thomas (left) shown here with W. N. Croft (1915-1953, a palaeobotanist in the British Museum (Natural History)) during the English-Norwegian-Swedish expedition to Spitzbergen (1939). Croft, like Moy-Thomas, died at a young age. He collected a large number of Old Red Sandstone fishes and Devonian plants for the Museum. Interpretation of Palaeospondylus Genus PALAEOSPOND YLUS Traquair, 1890 Fig. 2 a-c Type species. P. gunni Traquair, 1890. Towards the end of his short career Moy-Thomas turned his attention
. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). J. A. MOY-THOMAS 133. Fig. 1 J. A. Moy-Thomas (left) shown here with W. N. Croft (1915-1953, a palaeobotanist in the British Museum (Natural History)) during the English-Norwegian-Swedish expedition to Spitzbergen (1939). Croft, like Moy-Thomas, died at a young age. He collected a large number of Old Red Sandstone fishes and Devonian plants for the Museum. Interpretation of Palaeospondylus Genus PALAEOSPOND YLUS Traquair, 1890 Fig. 2 a-c Type species. P. gunni Traquair, 1890. Towards the end of his short career Moy-Thomas turned his attention to Palaeospondylus gunni Traquair, an enigmatic fossil from the Middle Old Red Sandstone of Caithness. This little fossil, barely reaching 60 mm in length, has been a palaeontological conundrum since its first description by Traquair (1890); Dean (1904 : 425) remarks 'Palaeospondylus, like Gloster, seems to have been born to bite the world'. Two Caithness men, Alexander and Marcus Gunn, 'delivered' Palaeospondylus into the scientific world by bringing it to the attention of Traquair. Their collecting efforts at Achanarras were recognized by Traquair who named it after them. Palaeospondylus has certainly had a 'bite' at many palaeon- tologists and zoologists, who have reacted by referring it to one or other of the many fish groups or, in some cases (Gill 1896; Dean 1898, 1900), to specially-erected classes or subclasses. When first described Palaeospondylus was regarded as an agnathan and this opinion received some initial consensus (Traquair 1890, 1893a, 1893ft, 1894, 1897; Howes 1892; Woodward 1892, 1898; Dean 1895; Stensio 1927; Bulman 1931; Ayers 1933; White 1935). This consensus was challenged on numerous occasions. SoUas & Sollas (1903) suggested it to be an elasmobranch. Kerr (1900) and Miller (1930) compared it to a larval. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appe
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