Professor Richard Owen and the important but neglected dinosaur Scelidosaurus harrisonii

Abstract

Scelidosaurus was discovered in the Liassic cliffs of Charmouth, Dorset in 1858. It was the first essentially complete dinosaur to be discovered and subjected to proper scientific scrutiny. It was also very early, geologically, coming from the Early Jurassic (Sinemurian), thus quite close in time to the dawn of the dinosaurian era.

On these grounds, hindsight leads us to expect that Scelidosaurus would occupy a seminal position in dinosaurian studies—but it does not. The year 1858 is instead widely recognised as being important on account of the announcement of Joseph Leidy's work on Hadrosaurus foulkii. Leidy's (1859) key paper cast Richard Owen's (1842) vision of dinosaurs as giant, scaly, quadrupeds in doubt. However, by 1863 Owen had completed his description of Scelidosaurus. It was quite clear that this large, scaly, quadrupedal creature entirely vindicated his own inductive reasoning of 1842.

Richard Owen's work on Scelidosaurus is shown to be curiously narrow‐minded and somewhat muddled. He singularly fails to acknowledge the work of others, notably Leidy, with whom he was friendly. Exploring Owen's treatment of Scelidosaurus provides insight into his character as a scientist, and it reflects the conflicting pressures that came to bear on a man who was both politically and socially ambitious.

Keywords:

• Richard Owen
• Joseph Leidy
• History
• Reptilia
• Dinosauria
• Thyreophora
• Scelidosaurus
• Hadrosaurus

Notes

Current address: Department of Paleobiology, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.