Robert Plot and Scrotum humanum — Extinct

References

Bakker, Robert T. 1986. The Dinosaur Heresies. New Theories Unlocking the Thriller of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction. Zebra Books.

Brookes, Richard. 1763. A New and Correct System of Pure Historical past vol. 5, The Pure Historical past of Waters, Earths, Stones, Fossils, and Minerals with their Virtues, Properties, and Newbery.

Buckland, William. 1824. “Discover on the Megalosaurus or nice Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield.” Transactions of the Geological Society of London 1(2):390–396.

Buffetaut, Éric. 1979. “A propos du reste de dinosaurien le plus anciennement décritl’interprétation de J. B. Robinet (1768).” Histoire et Nature 14:79-84.

Carpenter, Kenneth. 2006. “Largest of the Large: A Vital Re-evaluation of the Mega-Sauropod Amphicoelias fragillimus Cope, 1878” in Foster, John R. & Lucas, S. G. (eds) Paleontology and Geology of the Higher Jurassic Morrison Formation. New Mexico Museum of Pure Historical past and Science Bulletin 36, 131–137.

Carpenter, Kenneth. 2018. “Maraapunisaurus fragillimus, n.g. (previously Amphicoeliasfragillimus), a basal rebbachisaurid from the Morrison Formation (Higher Jurassic) of Colorado” Geology of the Intermountain West 5:227–244.

Collini, Cosimo A. 1784. “Sur quelques Zoolithes du Cupboard d’Histoire naturelle de S. A. S. E. Palatine & de Bavière, à Mannheim.” Acta Theodoro-Palatinae Mannheim 5:58–103.

Delair, Justin B. & Sarjeant, William A. S. 1975. “The Earliest Discoveries of Dinosaurs.” Isis 66(1):4–25.

Delair, Justin B. & Sarjeant, William A. S. 2002. The Earliest Discoveries of Dinosaurs: the Data Re-examined.” Proceedings of the Geologists’ Affiliation 113:185–197.

Dean, Dennis R. 1999. “Foreword” in Dean, Dennis R. (ed) The First “Dinosaur” E-book. Scholar’s Facsimiles & Reprints, 11–15.

Ford, Brian J. 2018. Too Large to Stroll: The New Science of Dinosaurs. HarperCollins.

Forsman, Jan. 2015. “Brontosauruksen yö (Night time of the Brontosaurus).” niin & näin 85 (on-line further). URL=http://www.netn.fi/artikkeli/brontosauruksen-yo English translation: URL= https://www.academia.edu/16608941/Night_of_the_Brontosaurus

Halstead, Lambert B. 1970. “Scrotum humanum Brookes, 1763 — the primary named dinosaur.” Journal of Insignificant Analysis 5(7):14-15.

Halstead, Lamber B. & Sarjeant, William A. S. 1993. “Scrotum humanum Brookes – the earliest title for a dinosaur.” Trendy Geology 18:221-224.

Herodotos (Hdt). 2013 The Histories. Translation by Holland, Tom. Penguin Classics.

Larson, Neal L. 2008. “100 years of Tyrannosaurus rex: the skeletons” in Larson, Peter & Carpenter, Kenneth (eds.) Tyrannosaurus rex, The Tyrant King. Bloomington: Indiana College Press, 1–55.

Mantell, Gideon. 1827. Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex, containing a common view of the geological relations of the south-eastern a part of England, with figures and descriptions of the Fossils of Tilgate Forest. Lupton Relfe.

Mayor, Adrienne. 2000. The First Fossil Hunters. Paleontology in Greek and Roman Instances. Princeton College.

McGowan, Christopher. 2001. The Dragon Seekers: How and Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Found the Dinosaurs and Paved the Manner for Darwin. Perseus Publishing.

Molnar, Ralph E.; Kurzanov, Seriozha M. & Dong Zhiming. 1990. “Carnosauria” in Weishampel David B.; Dodson, Peter & Osmólska, Halzska. (eds.) The Dinosauria. College of California Press, 169–209.

Naish, Darren. 2012. “Palaeontology bites again…” Laboratory Information Might 2012:31–32.

Naish, Darren. 2018. “A Huge Amount of Proof Confirms That Non-Chook Dinosaurs Have been Not Aquatic – Supplamentary Data” New Lands: Have been Dinosaurs too large? Conway Corridor, fifteenth Might 2018.

Norman, D. B. 1992. “Dinosaurs Previous and Current.” Journal of Zoology 228:173–181.

Osborn, Henry F. 1905. “Tyrannosaurus and different Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs.” Bulletin of the AMNH. 21(14):259–265.

Osborn, Henry F. 1916. “Skeletal diversifications of Ornitholestes, Struthiomimus, Tyrannosaurus” Bulletin of the American Museum of Pure Historical past 35(43):733–771.

Osborn, Henry H. & Mook, Charles C. 1921. “Camarasaurus, Amphicoelias, and different Sauropods of Cope.” Memoirs of the American Museum of Pure Historical past, New Sequence 3(3):249–387.

Owen, Richard. 1842. “Report on British Fossil Reptiles, Half II” in Dean, Dennis R. (ed) 1999. The First “Dinosaur” E-book. Scholar’s Facsimiles & Reprints.

Osi, A., Prondvai, E., & Géczy, B. 2010. “The historical past of Late Jurassic pterosaurs housed in Hungarian collections and the revision of the holotype of Pterodactylus micronyx Meyer 1856 (a ‘Pester Exemplar’).” Geological Society 343(1):277–286.

Parkinson, James. 1822. Outlines of Oryctology: An Introduction to the Research of Fossil Natural Stays. London.

Paul, Gregory S. 1988. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. Simon and Schuster.

Paul, Gregory S. 2019. “Figuring out the Largest Identified Land Animal: A Vital Comparability of Differing Strategies for Restoring the Quantity and Mass of Extinct Animals” Annals of Carnegie Museum 85(4):335–358.

Pausanias. (Paus.) 1900. Description of Greece vol. I. Translation by Shilleto, Arthur Richard. George Bell & Sons.

Phillips, John. 1871. Geology of Oxford and the Valley of Thames. Clarendon Press.

Plot, Robert. 1677. The Pure Historical past of Oxfordshire, Being an Essay Towards the Pure Historical past of England. Theater and S. Millers.  

Prothero, Donald R. 2019. The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries: Wonderful Fossils and the Individuals Who Discovered Them. Columbia College Press.

Robinet, Jean-Baptiste. 1766. De la Nature, Tome Quatrieme. Harrevelt.

Robinet, Jean-Baptiste. 1768. Concerns philosophiques de la gradation naturelle des formes de l’etre ou les Essais de la Nature qui apprend a faire l’homme. Charles Saillaint.

Rieppel, Olivier. 2022. “The primary ever described dinosaur bone fragment in Robinet’s philosophy of nature (1768).” Historic Biology 34(5):940–946.

Spalding, David A. E. & Sarjeant, William A. S. 2012. “Dinosaurs: The Earliest Discoveries” in Brett-Surman, M. Ok.; Holtz jr. Thomas R. & Harlow, James O. (eds) The Full Dinosaur. Indiana College Press, 3–24.

Taquet, Philippe & Padian, Kevin. 2004. “The earliest identified restoration of pterosaur and the philosophical origins of Cuvier’s Ossemens Fossiles.” Comptes Rendus Palevol 3(2):157–175.

Torrens, H. S. 1995. “The dinosaurs and dinomania over 150 years” in Sarjeant, William A.S. (ed) Vertebrate Fossils and the Evolution of Scientific Ideas. Gordon and Breach Publishers, 255–284.

Woodroff, D. Carey & Foster, John R. 2014. “The delicate legacy of Amphicoelias fragillimus (Dinosauria: Sauropoda; Morrison Formation – newest Jurassic).” Volumina Jurassica 12(2):211–220.

Footnotes

[1] See e.g., Charles Choi, “The Brontosaurus Is Again”, Scientific American, 7/iv/2015. Additionally Forsman (2015).

[2] https://nhmu.utah.edu/articles/2023/05/how-we-came-see-dinosaurs-color

[3] https://information.mit.edu/2020/study-timing-dinosaurs-evolution-0729

[4] Buckland (1824, 390, 392). Buckland provides partial credit score for the title to William Conybeare (1787–1857). The title Megalosaurus was first recommended by James Parkinson (1755–1824). Parkinson (1822, 298). Cf. Paul (1988, 281).

[5] Even flying pterosaurs, of which stays had been discovered since late 1700’s, had been initially thought of to be marine animals due it being thought of extra possible for unknown species to stay within the ocean depths. See Collini (1784). Cf. Taquet & Padian (2004); Osi, Prondavai & Géczy (2010).

[6] McGowan (2001, 88). On the time, the predominant scientific view was that animals don’t go extinct as it will be in opposition to the nice chain of being, wherein all created beings are in excellent concord. Extinction would trigger lacking hyperlinks in that chain and be in opposition to the pure order. Cuvier was one of many earliest supporters of extinction idea however was met with opposition all through his life. One in every of his opponents was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) who thought that as a substitute of going extinct, species evolve into different species over time, which Cuvier opposed. Darwin’s idea of pure choice then defined that extinction and evolution could possibly be mutually inclusive.

[7] Ibid, 9. Anning was excluded exterior of the educational analysis of her time as a consequence of her gender, despite the fact that she was usually extra deeply acquainted with the fossil findings she had made than the lecturers who revealed analysis papers on them, typically with out even mentioning her title. See ibid, 11–27.

[8] Ibid, 10. Despite the fact that he spent most of his analysis life amongst fossilized stays, Buckland himself was not one. He’s described as a vigorous and entertaining lecturer, instantly dashing in direction of his college students waving a hyena cranium and shouting “What guidelines the world?” (The reply Buckland was anticipating was “the abdomen, sir”.) Ibid, 29.

[9] Mantell (1827, 67).

[10] Paus. 5.13; Hdt. 1.68. See Mayor (2000, chapter 3).

[11] See McGowan (2001, 1); Prothero (2019, 3); for an in depth take a look at early fossils, see Spalding and Sarjeant (2012).

[12] Ashmolean is the oldest public museum on this planet, established in 1677 in Oxford to deal with gadgets donated for the college by Elias Ashmole, together with the stuffed physique of the final dodo seen in Europe. At the moment, the dodo, in addition to the stays that Buckland named Megalosaurus, are exhibited on the Oxford College Museum of Pure Historical past. Evidently gaining ample funding in academia was simply as tough within the 1600s as it’s in the present day, and it’s potential that Plot labored concurrently as a professor and as a curator because the cost from every was not sufficient to help him.

[13] Plot (1677, 132).

[14] Ibid, 133.

[15] Ibid, 133–136.

[16] Ibid, 138.

[17] Though a system shut to what’s now often called bionomial nomenclature was already developed by Swiss brothers Johann (1541–1613) and Gaspard (1560–1624) Bauhin for botanical work round a century earlier, Linnaeus was the primary to systematically use a binomial taxonomy in his e book Systema Naturae (1st ed. 1736, tenth ed. 1758). For this, Linnaeus remains to be often called the “father of contemporary taxonomy.”

[18] Brookes (1763, 317–318). As an attention-grabbing aspect observe, whereas the Cornwell fossil appears to have been the primary dinosaur discovery to be described, it was not the primary huge fossil found in England. Plot refers to 2 massive tooth present in Essex in the course of the reign of Richard I (1157–1199), and lists a number of different outsized bones and tooth present in numerous components of England (Plot 1677, 134–135). One such discovery was made in 1666 in London, when upon flattening the St. Mary Woolchurch, which had been broken within the Nice Hearth of London, a thigh-bone “a lot larger and longer than ours of stone may in proportion be, had it been whole” was discovered (ibid, 135; cf. Brookes 1763, 318). Plot took this as extra proof that these had been human stays since “how Elephants ought to come to be buried in Church buildings is a query not simply answered, besides we’ll run to so groundless a shift, as to say, that probably the Elephants may be there buried earlier than Christianity flourished in Britan and that these Church buildings had been afterward casually constructed over them” (Plot 1677, 315). Plot is clearly mocking, but he was nearer to the reality than he even realized. See additionally Sam Kriss, “Jurassic Lark”, First Issues, iii/2023.

[19] Brookes (1763, 317).

[20] Ibid. See Rieppel (2022, 941). Norman (1992, 173–174) calls it an “editorial error”.

[21] Robinet (1768, 31). See additionally Buffetaut (1979) and Rieppel (2022).

[22] Ibid. 19–20, Pl. 1, fig. 1. See Buffetaut (1979, 82).

[23] Robinet (1766), 209–210; 1768, 31. See Rieppel (2022, 942, 945).

[24] Although regardless of Delair and Sarjeant’s (2002, 186) declare, Robinet didn’t think about the fossil to truly be a scrotum.

[25] See esp. Rieppel (2022, 944).

[26] Phillips (1871, 164). Cf. Delair & Sarjeant (1975, 8); Rieppel (2022, 941).

[27] Halstead (1970)

[28] Ibid.

[29] Delair & Sarjeant (1975, 8).

[30] Halstead & Sarjeant (1993).

[31] Brookes (1763, 318).

[32] Halstead & Sarjeant (1993). See additionally Delair & Sarjeant (2002); Spalding & Sarjeant (2012, 10); Prothero (2019, 6–7).

[33] See e.g., Molnar, Kurnzanov & Dong (1990, 192) who record Scrotum humanum as a doubtful but distinct carnosaur.

[34] Rieppel (2022, 945); Mortimer, Mickey, “‘Scrotum humanum’ a torvosaur and Jurassic Chinese language theropod updates”, The Theropod Database, 9/i/2023.

[35] See e.g., Paul (1988, 280–281). For extra on taxonomic precedence regarding the notorious Brontosaurus vs. Apatosaurus case, see Forsman (2015). Scientific rigidity virtually got here to chew paleontologists on the bottom when in 2000 it was confirmed that Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the crucial acknowledged and beloved dinosaur species, had already been named Manospondylus gigas by Cope in 1892, a full 13 years earlier than Cope named it the “King Tyrant Lizard.” See Larson (2008, 37–38, 50); Prothero (2019, 224). Cf. Osborn (1905); (1916). As a substitute of following precedence, most referred to the modified ICZN ruling from 1st of January 2000, stating {that a} title that has been thought of legitimate for 50 years can’t be changed by a reputation that has been thought of invalid throughout the identical time, and rapidly modified the topic. Mike Taylor, “So why hasn’t Tyrannosaurus been renamed Manospondylus”, Miketaylor.org, 27/viii/2002; Matt Martyniuk, “What’s a Nomen Oblitum? Not What You Most likely Assume”, DinoGoss, 5/ix/2010. On the time of writing, no-one seems to have made an official software for shielding the T. rex title and the case appears to have been shoved beneath a rug.

[36] Delair & Serjeant (1975, 8); Rieppel (2022, 941); Mortimer (2023). The fossil can’t be the kind species T. tanneri as it’s from the later Callovian stage of the Jurassic. Megalosaurus and its clade Megalosauridae have although been handled as sort of a “wastebasket” for partial descriptions and unidentified mid-size theropod dinosaur discoveries. As such Megalosaurus has at one level or one other included a whole bunch of sub-species from 5 totally different continents, spanning 100 million years, with a number of of those sub-species been granted their very own genus (together with Carcharodontosaurus and Dilophosaurus). See Paul (1988, 281–282); Prothero (2019, 13).

[37] Llhuyd 1699, pl. 16. Reproduced in Delair & Sarjeant 2002, 186–187. Cf. Delair & Sarjeant 1975, 8.

[38] For a list of those early fossils, pre-dating Buckland’s Megalosaurus specimen, see Delair & Sarjeant 1975, 8–12; 2002, 186–192. Cf. Spalding & Sarjeant 2012, 11–13; Prothero 2019, 5.

[39] See Osborn & Mook 1921, 279; Carpenter 2006, 134; Woodroff & Foster 2014. See additionally Forsman 2015. As a result of fossil materials being misplaced, most of Cope’s dimension estimates, which might have positioned Amphicoelias the biggest vertebrate that has ever existed, have been discarded as exaggerations. In 2018, A. fragillimus was renamed Maraapunisaurus fragillimus as a consequence of taxonomic relocation (Carpenter 2018), rekindling new dimension estimates inserting it once more among the many largest identified sauropods. See Paul (2019).

[40] Prothero (2019, 207–208).

[41] “Cease Saying That There Are Too Many Sauropod Dinosaurs”, TetZoo 17/iv/2020. Cf. Prothero (2019, 109–111).

[42] See Naish (2012); (2018). Cf. Ford, “A prehistoric revolution”, Laboratory Information, 3/iv/2012; 2018. My favourite a part of Naish’s reply is the next: “Ford particularly said that the tails of huge dinosaurs had been too heavy to allow terrestrial life. Nonetheless, geometrical modelling carried out by dinosaur specialists and utilising strategies considerably extra rigorous than Ford’s strategy of dunking toy dinosaurs in water most undoubtedly doesn’t discover even essentially the most substantial, most muscular dinosaurian tail to current any downside as goes terrestrial locomotion” (Naish 2012, 32).

[43] “Robert Plot’s Misplaced Dinosaur Bone”, TetZoo, 16/xii/2022.

[44] Plot (1677, 131).

[45] Ibid, 131–132.

[46] “Robert Plot’s Misplaced Dinosaur Bone”, TetZoo, 16/xii/2022.

[47] The Cornwell fossil is just not the one instance right here: an enormous neogenic salamander Andrias scheuchzeri was initially described as Homo diluvia testis (“Human who witnessed the Flood”) by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672–1733) in 1726. See Prothero (2019, 4). Apparently, no-one appears to have argued for the precedence of the title, or claimed {that a} sure Pleistocene mammal ought to be renamed Orestes.

[48] “Robert Plot’s Misplaced Dinosaur Bone”, TetZoo, 16/xii/2022.