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The scientific and historical importance of small, old collections
In 1838, Ferdinand Joseph L'Herminier, a French botanist and zoologist born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, published the first description of the Double-striped Thick-knee (vocifer), today known by the...
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A Celebration of Fossils: Fossil Stories
October 14, 2015, is National Fossil Day, a day to celebrate all things fossils! Museums around the country are celebrating with fossil-related events the entire month of October, especially during the...
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A Fossil-Focused Citizen Science Challenge!
UPDATE: We are proud to announce that after 3.5 days, volunteers successfully transcribed and reviewed all 252 pages of field notes that we uploaded as part of this challenge! Thanks to all of our...
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Welcome to Fossil Stories!
Welcome to Fossil Stories, a week-long social media event (presented by the Biodiversity Heritage Library in collaboration with several of our partner institutions) celebrating fossils!Today, we...
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Live Webcast Today! Exploring Antarctic Dinosaurs with The Field Museum
During the 1990-91 austral summer, geologist David Elliot came across fossil bones on Mount Kirkpatrick in the Beardmore Glacier region of the Transantarctic Mountains in Antarctica at an altitude of...
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Ancient Myths Inspired by Fossils
The study of mythology associated with fossils is a relatively new field, which Adrienne Mayor (2005) terms “the folklore of paleontology”; she continues by saying that “[c]ombining oral traditions and...
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Early Innovations in Paleontology: Gessner and Fossils
Until the end of the 18th century, it was generally believed that species could not become extinct, and despite important scientific advances in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was widely held that...
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Challenge Focus: Lester F. Ward
Our Fossil Stories citizen science challenge - a challenge to fully transcribe three paleontologists' field books from the Smithsonian collection - is complete! Volunteers have successfully transcribed...
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Fossils Under the Microscope: Hooke and Micrographia
By the seventeenth century, it was still widely believed that species could not become extinct, and a widely-held belief, extending back to Aristotle's time, was that fossils were formed by the Earth...
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Proving Extinction: Cuvier and the Elephantimorpha
At the end of the eighteenth century, Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, also known as Georges Cuvier and widely remembered as the Father of Paleontology, helped establish extinction as a fact and...
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Webcast! Exploring the Smithsonian's FossiLab
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's FossiLab is a busy place, responsible for preparing newly-collected fossils for Smithsonian's scientists and maintaining the fossils in the...
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Challenge Focus: Harry S. Ladd
We're so excited that our #FossilStories Citizen Science Challenge was successfully completed on October 12, with 252 pages from 9 field books fully transcribed and reviewed in just 3.5 days! Be sure...
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A Sinner Killed During the Great Flood or a Fossil Reptile? Discovering the...
Most people today are at least somewhat familiar with the order of extinct marine reptiles known as Plesiosauria, thanks to the legend of the Loch Ness monster, which is often described as resembling a...
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Fact or Fiction? Discovering the Mosasaur
If you've seen Jurassic World (or even just the trailers), then you're familiar with Mosasaurus. In the film, it's portrayed as a giant aquatic lizard thundering out of the water to devour great white...
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The Roots of Paleobotany: Brongniart and Fossil Plants
French botanist Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart is known as the Father of Paleobotany. Active in many branches of botany, Brongniart is most-remembered for his pioneering work on the relationship between...
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Challenge Focus: G. Arthur Cooper
We're so excited that our #FossilStories Citizen Science Challenge was successfully completed on October 12, with 252 pages from 9 field books fully transcribed and reviewed in just 3.5 days! Be sure...
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Uncovering the "Fish Lizard": Ichthyosaurs and Home
When the fossils of extinct species were first discovered, they were often misidentified. Case in point: Ichthyosaurs.The first probable illustrations of ichthyosaur fossils were published by Edward...
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Identifying the First Flying Reptile: Pterosaurs
Pterosaurs, flying reptiles that lived 228-66 million years ago, are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved the capacity for powered flight.The first known pterosaur specimen was described by...
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The First Described and Validly Named Dinosaur: Megalosaurus
In 1676, the lower part of a massive femur was discovered in the Taynton Limestone Formation of Stonesfield limestone quarry, Oxfordshire. The bone was given to Robert Plot, Professor of Chemistry at...
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Naming the Second Dinosaur: Mantell and Iguanodon
The second validly-named dinosaur was Iguanodon, but the identification of its fossils as a distinct and extinct species was a somewhat long and arduous process.In 1822, Gideon Mantell, English...
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