Saturday, August 31, 2024

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction Of All Time, Michael J. Benton, c. 2003.

When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, Michael J. Benton, c. 2003. 

Incredible history of paleontology.

Giant Saurians

First dinosaur -- p. 19

  • William Buckland, 1784 - 1856, Professor of Geology, University of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church
  • had been brought bones from Middle Jurassic rocks north of Oxford, ~ 1818
  • classified the animal as a giant reptile, probably a lizard, 40 feet long
  • after six years of consideration, published his findings
  • called it: Megalosaurus, "big reptile"
  • first dinosaur to be described formally

Second dinosaur:

  • at the same time, independently, his "exact" contemporary
  • Gideon Mantell, 1790 - 1852
  • country physician in Sussex
  • made a visit to a patient near Cuckfield, 1820 / 1821
  • his wife, may, discovered some teeth from the Wealden beds, early Cretaceous
  • rhinocerus-like, plant-eating animal; seemed similar to the iguana
  • called it: Iguanodon ("iguana tooth")
  • thus, second dinosaur named

Third dinosaur:

  • Hylaeosaurus
  • from the same Wealden beds that produced Iguanodon; southern England
  • Mantell named it in 1833
  • a giant planteater

More dinosaurs named in the 1830s:

  • two from the Triassic:
  • Thecodontosaurus
  • named in the 1836 by Henry Riley and Samuel Stutchbury from Bristol, southwest England;
  • Plateosaurus
  • names in 1837 by Hermann von Meyer from southern Germany
  • Cetiosaurus
  • the sixth dinosaur to be named
  • a giant planteater, from the Middle Jurassic of Oxfordshire

But still no one knew much more than that.

Richard Owen, the "British Cuvier" [the latter from France] -- p. 30


No comments:

Post a Comment