T. Pointon (Author)
D. M. Martill (Author)
Volume: 375
Pages: 429-443
Publication date: 2013
Language: English
Pterodactyls or pterosaurs, well-known flying reptiles of the Mesozoic, were already compared with dragons and vampires well before the discovery of the spectacularly large species from North America with wing spans of over 6 m. First described in 1784, they were not recognized as flying reptiles until 1801, when Baron Cuvier described a specimen that a few years later he called Ptero Dactyle which later became Pterodactylus. The name Pterodactylus is technically invalid – it is a junior synonym of Ornithocephalus Soemmerring 1812 – but it has stuck in the psyche of both palaeontologists and public alike. By the end of the nineteenth century numerous workers had compared pterosaurs with demons, dragons and vampires and life restorations had appeared in books, magazines and as gargoyles on the external architecture of the Natural History Museum, London. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famously the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a polymath, with interests in science, sport, politics, travel, the occult and of course writing. He trained as, and became, a physician, with an eventually thriving general practice in Southsea, Hampshire from 1882 to 1890. In 1912, first as a series in Sunday magazines in the USA and in Strand Magazine in the UK, and shortly after as a hardback, he published The Lost World, an adventure story about the exploration of a South American tableland with prehistoric creatures that had persisted to the present. Although dinosaurs existed in this anachronistic fictional ecosystem, the ‘star’ animals were pterodactyls. Here we discuss the notoriety of pterodactyls generated by The Lost World, and hold Conan Doyle responsible for the widespread popularity of these iconic prehistoric reptiles right up to the present day.
...MoreBook C. J. Duffin; R. T. J. Moody; C. Gardner-Thorpe (2013) A History of Geology and Medicine.
Similar Citations
Book
Richard Fallon;
(2021)
Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature: How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon
Thesis
Marlena Briane Cameron;
(2017)
Fossil Excavation, Museums, and Wyoming: American Paleontology, 1870-1915
Article
R. Bruce McMillan;
(2016)
C. W. Beehler's Collection of Vertebrate Fossils: A Lost Legacy
Thesis
Rieppel, Lukas Benjamin;
(2012)
Dinosaurs: Assembling an Icon of Science
Book
Caitlin Donahue Wylie;
(2021)
Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work behind the Scenes
Book
Lukas Rieppel;
(2019)
Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle
Book
Ilja Nieuwland;
(2019)
American Dinosaur Abroad: A Cultural History of Carnegie’s Plaster Diplodocus
Article
Glendening, John;
(2009)
“The World-Renowned Ichthyosaurus”: A Nineteenth-Century Problematic and Its Representations
Article
Lukas Rieppel;
(2015)
Prospecting for Dinosaurs on the Mining Frontier: The Value of Information in America’s Gilded Age
Article
Smith, Kerri;
(2012)
China's Dinosaur Hunter: The Ground Breaker
Article
Turner, Derek;
(2000)
The Functions of Fossils: Inference and Explanation in Functional Morphology
Book
Weishampel, David B.;
White, Nadine M.;
(2003)
Dinosaur Papers: 1676-1906
Book
Rich, Thomas H. V.;
Rich, Pat Vickers;
(2000)
Dinosaurs of darkness
Book
Donald R. Prothero;
(2018)
The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution
Book
Dingus, Lowell;
Norell, Mark A.;
(2010)
Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus Rex
Article
Elizabeth D. Jones;
(2019)
Assumptions of Authority: The Story of Sue the T-Rex and Controversy Over Access to Fossils
Article
Jordan D. II Marché;
(2019)
“Giant Birds of Old”: An 1837 poem by James Dwight Dana (?) on the supposed makers of the Connecticut Valley's fossil trackways
Book
Ina Heumann;
Holger Stoecker;
Marco Tamborini;
Mareike Vennen;
(2018)
Dinosaurierfragmente: Zur Geschichte der Tendaguru-Expedition und ihrer Objekte, 1906-2018
Book
Martin Lockley;
Bernard Spilka;
(2024)
From Siberian Prisoner to Dinosaur Egg Detective: The Epic Odyssey of Karl Hirsch
Article
Lukas Rieppel;
(October 2020)
How Dinosaurs Became Tyrants of the Prehistoric
Be the first to comment!