by Tim Collins
65 million years ago
Dinosaurs wiped out. According to the scientist Luis Alvarez, this was because of a meteorite impact. The Cenozoic era and the age of mammals begins. Humans eventually appear, but they’ll have more pressing things than fossil hunting for a while, so watch out for a rather large gap on the timeline . . .
1796
George Cuvier presents a paper analyzing the skeletons of elephants and mammoths, and proves that species can become extinct. This lays the foundation for the dinosaur hunters of the nineteenth century.
1811
Mary Anning finds the skeleton of an Ichthyosaur in Lyme Regis, England.
1822
Gideon Mantell discovers fossilized teeth from a creature he names the “Iguanodon.”
1829
William Buckland publishes a paper on “coprolites,” a term he has coined for fossilized poop.
1831
Gideon Mantell publishes a paper called “The Age of Reptiles” which describes a time when giant reptiles were the dominant animals. It is later known as the Mesozoic era.
1836
Edward Hitchcock identifies giant fossilized footprints in America’s Connecticut Valley, but concludes they were made by ancient birds.
1841
Sir Richard Owen gives the name “dinosauria” to a group of land reptiles that have since vanished from the Earth. Dinosaurs would go on to capture the imagination of the public.
1864
Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh meet on friendly terms. They will soon become bitter enemies and compete to see
who can name and discover the most new dinosaur species.
1881
The Natural History Museum opens in London.
1902
Barnum Brown finds the partial skeleton of a huge dinosaur in the Hell Creek formation in Montana.
1905
Henry Fairfield Osborn names Barnum Brown’s creature Tyrannosaurus rex.
Dinosaur Hunter Hall of Fame
Georges Cuvier (1769–1832)
Georges Cuvier was a French naturalist whose work was hugely influential on the fossil hunters of the nineteenth century. He used his expert knowledge of animal anatomy to interpret fossils, and it was said that he could reconstruct an entire skeleton from just a single bone. He proved that species could become extinct, and has been called the “father of paleontology.”
William Buckland (1784–1856)
William Buckland was an English clergyman with a passion for fossils. He became president of the Geological Society in 1824 and wrote the first full account of what would later be called a dinosaur. Like many early dinosaur hunters, Buckland was a very odd character. His other great interest was eating unusual meat, and his ambition was to try every animal in the world.
Gideon Mantell (1790–1852)
Gideon Mantell was an English surgeon who gathered an important collection of fossils in the early nineteenth century.
Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864)
Edward Hitchcock was president of Amherst College in Massachusetts and an early geologist. He discovered fossilized tracks that he believed were made by giant ancient birds. We now know they were made by dinosaurs.
Mary Anning (1799–1847)
Mary Anning was a fossil-collector who lived in Lyme Regis, England. Her findings would have a massive impact on how we see the history of life on Earth. As a woman, she was never allowed to join the Geological Society and be fully accepted by the scientific community. But
the true importance of her discoveries is
now recognized.
Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892)
Sir Richard Owen was the scientist who coined the term “dinosaur.” He was one of the most ambitious figures in the fossil-hunting world, and was ruthless in his treatment of rivals such as Gideon Mantell.
Thomas Huxley (1825–1895)
Thomas Huxley was an English biologist and friend of Charles Darwin. He was a strong supporter of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which was controversial at the time. Huxley suggested that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs, an idea that’s now accepted.
Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–1899)
Othniel Charles Marsh was a fossil-hunter who competed with Edward Drinker Cope to discover new species in the American West in the late nineteenth century. The feud spurred both men on to great achievement, and between them they discovered many of the best-known dinosaurs.
Edward Drinker Cope (1840–1897)
Edward Drinker Cope was a professor of Natural Sciences at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and adversary of Othniel Charles Marsh in the Bone Wars. He published over 1,400 papers and discovered over 1,000 new species, including many dinosaurs.
Barnum Brown (1873–1963)
Barnum Brown was an American fossil hunter who made important discoveries at the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the twentieth century. He found several partial skeletons of the huge dinosaur that would become known as Tyrannosaurus rex.
Luis Alvarez (1911–1988)
Although he was a physicist and not a paleontologist, Luis Alvarez came up with a very famous theory about dinosaurs in 1980. He proposed that dinosaurs became extinct when the Earth was struck by a meteorite 65 million years ago.
Michael Crichton (1942–2008)
American author and screenwriter, Michael Crichton wrote the novel Jurassic Park, in which dinosaurs are brought back to life. In 1993, Steven Spielberg adapted it into a blockbuster film that inspired a new generation to take an interest in fossils. The franchise was rebooted in 2015.
Glossary
Antilles
A chain of islands in the West Indies, including Jamaica, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
Biped
A creature that uses two legs for walking, such as a human or Tyrannosaurus rex.
Bone bed
A layer of rock containing a dense collection of
fossilized remains.
Carnivore
A meat-eater. By contrast, herbivores eat only plants.
Coprolite
A piece of fossilized poop. We can learn about the diet of extinct creatures from these fossils.
Cretaceous
The last period of the Mesozoic era.
Extinct
A species with no living members is called extinct. The idea that a species could die out altogether was not widely accepted until the nineteenth century.
Femur
The upper bone in the back limb of a dinosaur. In humans, the femur is the thigh bone.
Fieldwork
Practical work carried out in a natural environment rather than a laboratory.
Fossil
The preserved remains or traces of prehistoric plants and animals.
Frill
A sheet of bone extending from the back of the skull in dinosaurs such
as Triceratops.
Geology
The study of the history of the Earth, especially through rocks.
Ghost town
A town which has been completely abandoned. For example, a town could have been built around a mine that has run out.
Jurassic
The middle period of the Mesozoic era.
Mesozoic
The era in which the dinosaurs lived. It is divided into the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods.
Naturalist
Someone who studies plants and animals. Not to be confused with naturists, who don’t wear any clothes.New World
A name for North and South America that Europeans coined when they first “discovered” and explored the land in the early sixteenth century. The name did not take into consideration the indigenous peoples that were already living on the continents.
Pa
leontology
The study of ancient life, especially through plant and animal fossils.
Quadruped
A creature that uses four legs for walking, such as a cat or Triceratops.
Triassic
The first period of the Mesozoic era.
Vertebrae
In dinosaur skeletons, these are small bones that fit together to form the neck, back, and tail.
