Dinosaurs
Dinosaurios
- Date
- 1824-1842 · confidence high
- Place
- Oxford / London, England
- Credited to
- William Buckland (Megalosaurus), Gideon Mantell (Iguanodon), Richard Owen (name Dinosauria)
- People
- 👤 Gideon Mantell1790–1852👤 Richard Owen1804–1892👤 William Buckland1784–1856
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Description of the first giant fossil reptiles and their grouping by Owen in 1842 as Dinosauria. It revealed radically extinct terrestrial faunas unlike any living today.
Mary Anning, a collector from Lyme Regis, contributed key ichthyosaur and plesiosaur finds without formal recognition.
What it led to
- popular palaeontology and natural history museums
- understanding of mass extinctions
- the hypothesis that dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds
- the Chicxulub impact (Alvarez, 1980)
Built on
- Extinction and comparative anatomy of fossils (Cuvier)1796-1812
- Cuvier's theory of extinction
- Mary Anning's fossils