Ichthyosauria

I by no means consider it as wholly a fish ~ Sir Everard Home

There is no reason whatever to believe that the order of nature has any greater bias in favor of man than it had in favor of the icthyosaur [sic] or the pterodactyl. ~ H. G. Wells

Ichthyosauria (lit. 'fish lizard', from Ancient Greek: ἰχθύς (ichthys) 'fish' and σαῦρος (sauros) 'lizard') is an order of large extinct marine reptiles sometimes referred to as ichthyosaurs, although the term is also used for wider clades that the order resides in. The first discovered and perhaps best known genus is the Ichthyosaurus.

Quotes

• These particulars, in which the bones of this animal differ from those of fishes, are sufficient to shew, that although the mode of its progressive motion has induced me to place it in that class, I by no means consider it as wholly a fish, when compared with other fishes, but rather view it in a similar light to those animals met with in New South Wales, which appear to be so many deviations from ordinary structure, for the purpose of making intermediate connecting links, to unite in the closest manner the classes of which the great chain of animated beings is composed.
  • Sir Everard Home, "Some account of the fossil remains of an animal more nearly allied to fishes than any of the other classes of animals", Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 104 (1814), p. 576

• Its place in the chain of animal creation is clearly pointed out to be between the proteus and lizard, and will be suffi­ciently marked out by calling it Proteo-saurus.
  • Sir Everard Home, "Reasons for giving the name Proteo-Saurus to the fossil skeleton which has been described", Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 109 (1819), p. 215

• Half lizard, and half fish, the name Ichthyosauri expresses the words, but not the Idea which lurks within them. It is therefore only a conventional term, forced upon us by the rash attempt to ally Past and Present Races, living under two such alien Planets.
  • Thomas Hawkins, The Book of the Great Sea Dragons (1840), p. 10

• Es rauscht in den Schachtelhalmen,
  Verdächtig leuchtet das Meer,
  Da schwimmt mit Thränen im Auge
  Ein Ichthyosaurus daher.
  • Joseph Victor von Scheffels, "Der Ichthyosaurus"
    • The rushes are strangely rustling,
        The ocean uncannily gleams,
      As with tears in his eyes down gushing,
        An Ichthyosaurus swims.
      He bewails the frightful corruption
        Of his age, for an awful tone
      Has lately been noticed by many
        In the Lias formation shown.
      'The Plesiosaurus, the elder,
        Goes roaring about on a spree;
      The Plerodactylus even
        Comes flying as drunk as can be.
      'The Iguanodon, the blackguard,
        Deserves to be publicly hissed,
      Since he lately in open daylight
        The Ichthyosaura kissed.
      'The end of the world is coming,
        Things can't go on long in this way;
      The Lias formation can't stand it,
        Is all that I've got to say!'
      So the Ichthyosaur went walking
        His chalks in an angry mood;
      The last of his sighs extinguished
        In the roar and the rush of the flood.
      And all of the piggish Saurians
        Died, too, on that dreadful day;
      There were too many chalks against them,
        And of course they'd the devil to pay.
      And this petrifideal ditty?
        Who was it this song did write?
      'Twas found as a fossil album leaf
        Upon a coprolite.
      • Charles Godfrey Leland, "The Ichthyosaurus",
        Gaudeamus (London: Trübner & Co., 1872)

• There is no reason whatever to believe that the order of nature has any greater bias in favor of man than it had in favor of the icthyosaur [sic] or the pterodactyl.
  • H. G. Wells, The Fate of Man (1939), p. 247

• This sea-going reptile with terrestrial ancestors converged so strongly on fishes that it actually evolved a dorsal fin and tail in just the right place and with just the right hydrological design. These structures are all the more remarkable because they evolved from nothing—the ancestral terrestrial reptile had no hump on its back or blade on its tail to serve as a precursor.
  • Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980)

• Leptopterygius, big as a city bus,
  was an insatiable ichthyosaur,
  anything captured by Leptopterygius
  Never was seen in the sea anymore.
  • Jack Prelutsky, Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast (Greenwillow Books, 1988)

See also

• Plesiosauria