Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

LATREILLE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 140 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

LATREILLE , who commenced the study of See also:

reptiles as See also:early as 18or, had kept See also:pace with the progress of See also:science when he Latreilte. published, in 1825, his Families naturelles du regne See also:animal (See also:Paris, 1825, 8vo). He separated the Batrachians as a class from the Reptiles, and the latter he divides into two sections only, Cataphracta and Squamosa—in the former Crocodiles being associated with the Chelonians. He bases this view on the development of a See also:carapace in both, on the structure of the feet, on the fixed quadrate See also:bone, on the single See also:organ of copulation. None of the succeeding herpetologists adopted a See also:combination founded on such important characters See also:army. except J. E. See also:GRAY, who, however, destroyed Latreille's See also:idea of Cataphracta by adding the Amphisbaenians2 as a third See also:order. A See also:mass of new materials now began to accumulate from all parts of the See also:world in See also:European museums. Among others, Spix had brought from See also:Brazil a See also:rich spoil to the See also:Munich Museum, wegler. and the Bavarian See also:Academy charged See also:Joss. WAGLER to prepare a See also:general See also:system of reptiles and batra- chians. His See also:work,3 the result of ten years' labour, is a See also:simple but lasting See also:monument to a See also:young naturalist,4 who, endowed with an ardent See also:imagination, only too frequently misinterpreted the See also:evidence of facts, or forced it into the service of preconceived ideas. See also:Cuvier had See also:drawn See also:attention to certain resemblances in 'See also:Bull. Sci.

See also:

Soc. Philomat., See also:July 1816. 2 See also:Catalogue of the Tortoises, Crocodiles and Amphisbaenians in the Collection of the See also:British Museum (See also:London, 1844, 16mo), p. 2. ' Natiialiches System der Amphibien mit vorangehender See also:Classification der Saugethiere and See also:Vogel—ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Zoologie (Munich, 183o, 8vo). 4 Wagler was accidentally killed three years after the publication of his System.some parts of the osseous structure of See also:Ichthyosaurus and Pterodactylus to dolphins, birds, crocodiles, &c. Wagler, seizing upon such analogical resemblances, separated those See also:extinct Saurians from the class of Reptiles, and formed of them and the Monotremes a distinct class of Vertebrates, intermediate between mammals and birds, which he called Gryphi. We must admit that he made See also:free use of his imagination by defining his class of Gryphi as " vertebrates with lungs lying free in the See also:pectoral cavity; oviparous development of the embryo (within or) without the See also:parent; the young fed (or suckled?) by the parents." By the last See also:character this Waglerian class is distinguished from the reptiles. Reptiles (in which Wagler includes Batrachians) are divided into eight orders: Testudines, Crocodili, Lacertae, Serpentes, Angues, Caeciliae, Ranae and Ichthyodi. He has See also:great merit in having employed, for the subdivision of the families of lizards, the structure of the See also:tongue and the mode of insertion of the See also:teeth in the jaws. On the other See also:hand, Wagler entirely failed in arranging See also:snakes in natural families, venomous and non--venomous types being mixed in the See also:majority of his See also:groups. L.

FITZINGER was Wagler's contemporary; his first work .5 preceded Wagler's system by four years. As he says in the See also:

preface, his See also:object was to arrange the reptiles in Fitz- " a natural system." Unfortunately, in order to See also:finger. attain this object, Fitzinger paid regard to the most superficial points of resemblance; and in the tabula affinitatum generum which he constructed to demonstrate " the progress of nature " he has been much more successful in placing closely allied generic forms in contiguity than in tracing the relationships of the higher groups. That table is prepared in the See also:form of a genealogical See also:tree, but Fitzinger wished to See also:express thereby merely the amount of morphological resemblance, and there is no evidence whatever in the See also:text that he had a clear idea of genetic See also:affinity. The Batrachians are placed at the bottom of the See also:scheme, leading through Hyla to the Geckos (clearly on See also:account of the digital dilatations) and through See also:Caecilia to See also:Amphisbaena. At the See also:top See also:Draco leads through Pterodactylus to the Bats (Pteropus), Ichthyosaurus to the Cetaceans (See also:Delphinus), Emys to the Monotremes, Testudo to Maths, and the Marine Turtles to the See also:Divers and Penguins. In Fitzinger's system the higher groups are, in fact, identical with those proposed by Merrem, while greater originality is shown in the subdivision of the orders. He differed also widely from Wagler in his views as to the relations of the extinct forms. The order of Loricata consists of two families, the Ichthyosauroidea and Crocodiloidea, the former comprising See also:Iguanodon, See also:Plesiosaurus, Saurocephalus and Ichthyosaurus. In the order Squamata Lacertilians and Ophidians are combined and divided into twenty-two families, almost all based on the most conspicuous See also:external characters: the first two, viz. the Geckos and Chameleons, are natural enough, but in the three following Iguanoids and Agamoids are sadly mixed, See also:Pterodactyles and Draco forming one See also:family; Megalosaurus, Mosasaurus, Varanus, Tejus, &c., are associated in another named Ameivoidea ; the Amphisbaenidae are correctly defined ; the Colubroidea are a heterogeneous assemblage of See also:thirty genera; but with his family of Bungaroidea Fitzinger makes an See also:attempt to See also:separate at least a See also:part of the venomous Colubrine Snakes from the Viperines, which again are differentiated from the last family, that of Crotaloidea. If this little work had been his only performance in the See also:field of herpetology his name would have been honourably mentioned among his See also:fellow-workers. But the promise of his early labours was not justified by his later work, and if we take See also:notice of the latter here it is only because his name has become attached to many a reptile through the pedantic rules of zoological nomenclature. The labours of Wiegmann, See also:Muller, Dumeril and Bibron exercised no See also:influence on him, and when he commenced to publish a new system of reptiles in 1843,6 of which fortunately one fasciculus only appeared, he exhibited a classification in which morphological facts are entirely superseded by fanciful ideas of the vaguest See also:kind of physiosophy, each class of vertebrates being divided 6 Neue Classification der Reptilien nach ihren natiirlichen Verwandtschaften (See also:Vienna, 1826, 4th).

6 Systema Reptilium (Vienna, 1843, 8vo). Merrem. into five " sense " See also:

series, and each series into three orders, one comprising forms of See also:superior, the second of See also:medium and the third of inferior development. In the generic arrangement of the See also:species,. to which Fitzinger devoted himself especially in this work, he equally failed to advance science. We have now arrived at a See also:period distinguished by the See also:appearance of a work which superseded all its predecessors, which formed the basis for the labours of many succeeding years, and which will always remain one of the classical monuments of descriptive See also:zoology—the Erpetologie generale ou histoire Dumeril naturelle See also:complete See also:des reptiles of A. M. C. DuMERIL and and G. BIBRON (Paris, 8vo). The first See also:volume appeared in Bibron. 1834, and the ninth and last in 1854. No naturalist of that See also:time could have been better qualified for the tremendous undertaking than C.

Dumeril, who almost from the first See also:

year of See also:half a See also:century's connexion with the then largest collection of Reptilia had chiefly devoted himself to their study. The task would have been too great for the See also:energy of a single See also:man; it was, therefore, fortunate for Dumeril that he found a most devoted fellow-labourer in one of his assistants, G. Bibron, whose abilities equalled those of the See also:master, but who, to the great loss of science, died (in 1848) before the completion of the work. Dumeril had the full benefit of Bibron's knowledge for the volumes containing the Snakes, but the last volume, which treats of the Tailed Batrachians, had to be prepared by Dumeril alone. The work is the first which gives a comprehensive scientific account of reptiles generally, their structure, See also:physiology and literature, and again each of the four orders admitted by the authors is introduced by a similar general account. In the See also:body of the work 121 Chelonians, 468 Saurians, 586 Ophidians and 218 Batrachians are described in detail and with the greatest precision. Singularly enough, the authors revert to See also:Brongniart's arrangement, in which the Batrachians are co-See also:ordinate with the other three orders of reptiles. This must appear all the more See also:strange as Von See also:Baer'. in 1828, and J. Muller2 in 1831, had urged, besides other essential See also:differences, the important fact that no Batrachian embryo possesses either an amnion or an allantois, like a reptile. 4. Period of the Separation of Reptiles and Batrachians as Distinct Classes or Subclasses.—In the See also:chronological order which we have adopted for these See also:historical notes, we had to refer in their proper places to two herpetologists, See also:Blainville and Latreille, who advocated a deeper than merely ordinal separation of Reptiles from Batrachians, and who were followed by J. Mailer F.

S. Leuckart. But this view only now began to find and more general See also:

acceptance. J. MULLER and STANNIUS stannius• were guided in their classification entirely by anatomical characters, and consequently recognized the wide See also:gap which separates the Batrachians from the Reptiles; yet they considered them merely as subclasses of the class See also:Amphibia. The former directed his attention particularly to those forms which seemed to occupy an intermediate position between Lacertilians and Ophidians, and definitely relegated Anguis, Pseudopus, Acontias to the former, and Typhlops, Rhinophis, Tortrix, but also the Amphisbaenoids to the latter. Stannius interpreted the characteristics of the Amphisbaenoids differently, as will be seen from the following abstract of his classification: 3 SuBCLASSIS: AMPHIBIA MONOPNOA (Leuckart).

End of Article: LATREILLE

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
LATOUCHE, HYACINTHE JOSEPH ALEXANDRE THABAUD DE 		[next]
LATREILLE, PIERRE ANDRE (1762–1833)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries