A number of areas of research on dinosaurs have attracted attention
far beyond the realm of those who take a purely academic interest in
these creatures. This common interest appears to arise because
dinosaurs capture the public imagination in a way that few other
subjects do. The following chapters focus on these topics in order
to illustrate the extraordinary variety of approaches and types of
information that are used in our attempts to unravel the mystery of
dinosaurs and their biology.
Dinosaurs: hot-, cold-, or luke-warm-blooded?
As we have seen in Chapter 1, Richard Owen, at the time of his
invention of the word ‘dinosaur’, speculated about the physiology
of dinosaurs. Extracting meaning from the rather long-winded final
sentence of his scientific report:
The Dinosaurs . . . may be concluded to have . . . [a] superior
adaptation to terrestrial life . . . approaching that which now
characterizes the warm-blooded Vertebrata. [i.e. living mammals
and birds]
(Owen 1842: 204)
Although the ‘mammaloid’ reconstructions of dinosaurs that he
created for the Crystal Palace Park clearly echo his sentiments, the
biological implications he was hinting at were never grasped by
other workers at the time. In a sense, Owen’s visionary approach
was tempered by rational Aristotelian logic: dinosaurs were
structurally reptilian, it therefore followed that they had scaly
skins, laid shelled eggs, and, like all other known reptiles, were
‘cold-blooded’ (ectothermic).
In a similar vein to Owen, Thomas Huxley proposed, almost
50 years later, that birds and dinosaurs should be considered close
relatives because of the anatomical similarities that could be
demonstrated between living birds, the earliest known fossil bird
Archaeopteryx, and the newly discovered small theropod
Compsognathus. He concluded that:
. . . it is by no means difficult to imagine a creature completely
intermediate between Dromaeus [an emu] and Compsognathus [a
dinosaur] . . . and the hypothesis that the . . . class Aves has its root
in the Dinosaurian reptiles; . . .
(Huxley 1868: 365)
If Huxley was correct, it should have been possible to ask:
were dinosaurs then conventionally reptilian (physiologically)
or were they closer to the ‘warm-blooded’ (endothermic) birds?
There appeared to be no obvious way of answering such
questions.
Despite such intellectual ‘nudges’, it was close to a century after
Huxley’s paper that palaeontologists began to search with greater
determination for data that might have a bearing on this central
question. The spur to renewed interest in the topic finds an echo in
the adoption of the broader and more integrated agenda for the
interpretation of the fossil record: the rise of palaeobiology, as
outlined in Chapter 2. We saw there how some wide-ranging
observations were strung together by Robert Bakker into a case for
endothermy in dinosaurs. Let’s now consider these and other
arguments in greater detail.
New approaches: dinosaurs as climatic proxies?
Attempts were being made to investigate the degree to which fossils
could be used to reconstruct climates in the ancient world. It is
widely recognized that endotherms (basically mammals and birds)
are not particularly good indicators of climate because they are
found everywhere, from equatorial to polar regions. Their
endothermic physiology (and clever use of body insulation) allows
them to operate more or less independently of prevailing climatic
conditions. By contrast, ectotherms, such as lizards, snakes, and
crocodiles, are reliant on ambient climatic conditions, and as a
result they tend to be found mainly in warmer climatic zones.
Using this approach to examine the geographic distribution of
obvious ectotherms and endotherms in the fossil record proved
useful, but then threw up several interesting questions. For
example, what about the immediate evolutionary ancestors of
endothermic mammals in Permian and Triassic times? Were they
also able to control their internal body temperatures? If they did,
how would it have affected their geographic distribution? And more
pointedly in this context, dinosaurs seemed to have a wide
geographic spread, so did this mean that they were capable of
controlling their body temperature rather like endotherms?
Patterns in the fossil record
The foundation of Bakker’s approach to endothermy in dinosaurs
was the pattern in the succession of animal types in the early
Mesozoic. During the time leading up to the end of the Triassic
Period synapsid reptiles were by far the most abundant and diverse
animals on land.
Right at the close of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic
Period (205 Ma) the very first true mammals appeared on Earth
and were represented by small, shrew-like creatures. In complete
contrast, the latter part of the Triassic Period also marks the
appearance of the first dinosaurs (225 Ma), and across the
Triassic/Jurassic divide the dinosaurs become widespread, very
diverse, and clearly dominant members of the land fauna. This
ecological balance – rare, small, very probably nocturnal mammals
and abundant, large, and increasingly diverse dinosaurs – was then
maintained for the next 160 million years, until the close of the
Cretaceous Period (65 Ma).
As animals living in the present day, we are comfortable with the
notion that mammals are, along with birds, the most conspicuous
and diverse of land-living vertebrates. Mammals are self-evidently
fast-moving, intelligent, generally highly adaptable creatures, and
much of this present-day ‘success’ we attribute to their physiological
status: their high basal metabolic rate, which permits the
maintenance of a high and constant body temperature, complex
body chemistry, comparatively large brains, and consequently high
activity levels, and their status as endotherms. In contrast, we
generally observe that reptiles are considerably less diverse and
quite sharply climatically restricted; this is largely explained by the
fact that they have a much lower metabolic rate, rely on external
sources of heat to keep the body warm and therefore chemically
active, and have much lower and more intermittent levels of
activity: the ectothermic condition.
These, admittedly very general, observations permit us to have
expectations that can be superimposed on the fossil record. All
things being equal, we would predict that the first appearance
of true mammals at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary, in a world
otherwise dominated by reptiles, would spark the former’s rapid
evolutionary rise and diversification at the expense of the latter.
So the fossil record of mammals would be expected to show a rapid
rise in abundance and diversity in Early Jurassic times, until they
completely dominated the ecosystems of the Mesozoic Era.
However, the fossil record reveals exactly the opposite pattern: the
(reptilian) dinosaurs rose to dominance in the Late Triassic
(220 Ma) and the mammals only began to increase in size and
diversity after the dinosaurs had become extinct at the end of the
Cretaceous period (65 Ma).
Bakker’s explanation for this counterintuitive set of events was that
dinosaurs could have succeeded, evolutionarily, in the face of true
mammals only if they too had endotherm-like high basal metabolic
rates and could be as active and resourceful as contemporary
mammals. Dinosaurs quite simply had to be active endotherms – it
was to Bakker a self-evident truth. While the pattern revealed by the
fossil record was indeed clear, the scientific proof necessary to
support his ‘truth’ needed to be assembled and tested.
Showing posts with label Dinosaurs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dinosaurs. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Dinosaurs: a global perspective
In more recent times, this approach has been applied much more
broadly and in a much more ambitious way. Paul Upchurch of
University College London and Craig Hunn at Cambridge hoped to
explore the entire family tree of the Dinosauria for evidence of
similarities in patterns of stratigraphic ranges and cladistic
patterns by looking at large numbers of dinosaurs. These were
compared to the currently established distributions of the
continents at intervals through the entire Mesozoic Era. An
attempt was being made to find out whether an overall signal did
emerge that was suggestive of a tectonic influence on the
evolutionary history of all dinosaurs.
Despite the inevitable ‘noise’ in the system resulting largely from
the incompleteness of the fossil record of dinosaurs, it was
heartening to note that statistically significant coincident patterns
emerged within the Middle Jurassic, the Late Jurassic, and the
Early Cretaceous intervals. This indicates that tectonic events do, as
expected, play some role in determining where and when particular
groups of dinosaurs flourished. What is more, this effect has also
been preserved in the stratigraphic and geographic distributions of
other fossil organisms, so the evolutionary history of great swathes
of organisms was effected by tectonic events and the imprint is still
with us today. In a way, this is not new. I need only point to the
unusual distribution of marsupial mammals (found only in the
Americas and Australasia today), and the fact that distinct areas of
the modern world have their own characteristic fauna and flora.
What this new research suggests is that we may well be able to trace
the historical reasons for these distributions far more accurately
than we had supposed possible.
broadly and in a much more ambitious way. Paul Upchurch of
University College London and Craig Hunn at Cambridge hoped to
explore the entire family tree of the Dinosauria for evidence of
similarities in patterns of stratigraphic ranges and cladistic
patterns by looking at large numbers of dinosaurs. These were
compared to the currently established distributions of the
continents at intervals through the entire Mesozoic Era. An
attempt was being made to find out whether an overall signal did
emerge that was suggestive of a tectonic influence on the
evolutionary history of all dinosaurs.
Despite the inevitable ‘noise’ in the system resulting largely from
the incompleteness of the fossil record of dinosaurs, it was
heartening to note that statistically significant coincident patterns
emerged within the Middle Jurassic, the Late Jurassic, and the
Early Cretaceous intervals. This indicates that tectonic events do, as
expected, play some role in determining where and when particular
groups of dinosaurs flourished. What is more, this effect has also
been preserved in the stratigraphic and geographic distributions of
other fossil organisms, so the evolutionary history of great swathes
of organisms was effected by tectonic events and the imprint is still
with us today. In a way, this is not new. I need only point to the
unusual distribution of marsupial mammals (found only in the
Americas and Australasia today), and the fact that distinct areas of
the modern world have their own characteristic fauna and flora.
What this new research suggests is that we may well be able to trace
the historical reasons for these distributions far more accurately
than we had supposed possible.
The ‘invention’ of dinosaurs
Fourteen years younger than Mantell, Richard Owen also studied
medicine, but concentrated in particular on anatomy. He gained a
reputation as a skilled anatomist, and acquired a position at the
Royal College of Surgeons in London, which gave him access to
a great deal of comparative material and, through considerable
industry and skill, allowed him to foster a reputation as the ‘English
Cuvier’. During the late 1830s, he was able to persuade the British
Association to grant him money to prepare a detailed review of all that was then known of British fossil reptiles. This eventually
resulted in the publication of a stream of large, well-illustrated
volumes that would mimic the hugely important works (notably
the multi–volume Ossemens Fossiles) published by Cuvier
earlier in the century, and further cemented Owen’s scientific
reputation.
This project resulted in two important publications: one in 1840 on
mostly marine fossils (Conybeare’s Enaliosauria) and another in
1842 on the remainder, including Mantell’s Iguanodon. The 1842
report is a remarkable document because of Owen’s invention of
the new ‘tribe or sub-order . . . which I . . . name . . . Dinosauria’.
Owen identified three dinosaurs in this report: Iguanodon and
Hylaeosaurus, both discovered in the Weald and named by
Mantell; and Megalosaurus, the giant reptile from Oxford.
He recognized dinosaurs as members of a unique and hitherto
unrecognized group on the basis of several detailed and distinctive
anatomical observations. These included the enlarged sacrum
(a remarkably strong attachment of the hips to the spinal column),
the double-headed ribs in the chest region, and the pillar-like
construction of the legs (see Figure 10).
In reviewing each dinosaur in turn, Owen trimmed their
dimensions considerably, suggesting that they were large, but in the region of 9 to 12 metres, rather than the more dramatic lengths
suggested by Cuvier, Mantell, and Buckland on previous occasions.
Furthermore, Owen speculated a little more on the anatomy and
biology of these animals in words that have an extraordinary
resonance in the light of today’s interpretations of the biology
and way of life of dinosaurs.
Owen’s conception was therefore one of very stout, but egg-laying
and scaly (because they were still reptiles) creatures resembling the
largest mammals to be found in the tropical regions of the Earth
today; his dinosaurs were in effect the crowning glory of a time
on Earth when egg-laying and scaly-skinned reptiles reigned
supreme. Owen’s dinosaurs were the ancient world’s equivalents of
present-day elephants, rhinos, and hippos. Looked at purely from
the logic of scientific deduction, based on such meagre remains, this
was not only brilliantly incisive, but an altogether revolutionary
vision of creatures from the ancient past. Such breathtaking vision
is all the more remarkable when it is juxtaposed to the ‘gigantic
lizard’ models, though these were entirely reasonable and logical
interpretations built on established and respected Cuvierian
principles of comparative anatomy.
The creation of the Dinosauria had other important purposes at the
time. The reports also offered a sweeping refutation of the general
progressionist and transmutationist movements within the fields
of biology and geology during the first half of the 19th century.
Progressionists noted that the fossil record seemed to show that life
had become progressively more complex: the earliest rocks showed
the simplest forms of life, while more recent rocks showed evidence
of more complex creatures. Transmutationists noted that members
of one species were not identical and pondered whether this
variability might also allow species to change over time. Jean
Baptiste de Lamarck, a colleague of Cuvier in Paris, had suggested
that animal species might transmute, or change, in form over time
through the inheritance of acquired characteristics. These ideas
challenged the widely held, biblically inspired belief that God had
created all creatures on Earth, and were being widely and
acrimoniously discussed.
Dinosaurs, and indeed several of the groups of organisms
recognized in the God-fearing Owen’s reports, provided evidence
that life on Earth did not demonstrate an increase in complexity
over time – in fact quite the reverse. Dinosaurs were anatomically
reptiles (that is to say, members of the general group of egg-laying,
cold-blooded, scaly vertebrates); however, the reptiles living today
were a degenerate group of creatures when compared to Owen’s
magnificent dinosaurs that had lived during Mesozoic times. In
short, Owen was attempting to strangle the radical, scientifically
driven intellectualism of the time in order to re-establish an
understanding of the diversity of life that had its basis closer to the
views espoused by Reverend William Paley in his book entitled
Natural Theology in which God held centre-stage as the Creator
and Architect of all Nature’s creatures.
Owen’s fame grew steadily through the 1840s and 1850s, and he
became involved in the committees associated with the planning of
the relocated Great Exhibition of 1854. It is a curious fact that
Owen, for all his burgeoning fame, was not first choice as the
scientific director for the construction of the dinosaurs – Gideon
Mantell was. Mantell refused on the grounds of persistent
ill-health, and also because he was exceedingly wary of the risks
associated with popularizing scientific work, particularly the risk of
misrepresentating imperfectly developed ideas.
Mantell’s story ended in tragedy: his obsession with fossils and
the development of a personal museum led to the collapse of his
medical practice, and his family disintegrated (his wife left him and
his surviving children emigrated once they were old enough to leave
home). The diary that he kept for much of his life makes melancholy
reading; in his final years he was left lonely and racked by chronic
back pain, and he died of a self-administered overdose of
laudanum.
Although outflanked by the ambitious, brilliant, and crucially
full-time, scientist Owen, Mantell spent much of the last decade
of his life continuing research on ‘his’ Iguanodon. He produced
a series of scientific articles and extremely popular books
summarizing many of his new discoveries, and he was the first to
realize (in 1851) that Owen’s vision of the dinosaurs (or at least
Iguanodon) as stout ‘elephantine reptiles’ was probably wrong.
Further discoveries of jaws with teeth, and further analysis of the
partial skeleton (the ‘Mantel-piece’), revealed that Iguanodon had
strong back legs and smaller, weaker front limbs. As a result, he
concluded that its posture may have had much more in common
with the ‘upright’ reconstructions of giant ground sloths
(paradoxically inspired by Owen’s detailed description of the fossil
ground sloth Mylodon). Unfortunately, this work was overlooked,
largely because of the excitement and publicity surrounding Owen’s
Crystal Palace dinosaur models. The truth of Mantell’s suspicions,
and the strength of his own intellect, were not to be revealed for a
further 30 years, and through another amazing piece of serendipity.
medicine, but concentrated in particular on anatomy. He gained a
reputation as a skilled anatomist, and acquired a position at the
Royal College of Surgeons in London, which gave him access to
a great deal of comparative material and, through considerable
industry and skill, allowed him to foster a reputation as the ‘English
Cuvier’. During the late 1830s, he was able to persuade the British
Association to grant him money to prepare a detailed review of all that was then known of British fossil reptiles. This eventually
resulted in the publication of a stream of large, well-illustrated
volumes that would mimic the hugely important works (notably
the multi–volume Ossemens Fossiles) published by Cuvier
earlier in the century, and further cemented Owen’s scientific
reputation.
This project resulted in two important publications: one in 1840 on
mostly marine fossils (Conybeare’s Enaliosauria) and another in
1842 on the remainder, including Mantell’s Iguanodon. The 1842
report is a remarkable document because of Owen’s invention of
the new ‘tribe or sub-order . . . which I . . . name . . . Dinosauria’.
Owen identified three dinosaurs in this report: Iguanodon and
Hylaeosaurus, both discovered in the Weald and named by
Mantell; and Megalosaurus, the giant reptile from Oxford.
He recognized dinosaurs as members of a unique and hitherto
unrecognized group on the basis of several detailed and distinctive
anatomical observations. These included the enlarged sacrum
(a remarkably strong attachment of the hips to the spinal column),
the double-headed ribs in the chest region, and the pillar-like
construction of the legs (see Figure 10).
In reviewing each dinosaur in turn, Owen trimmed their
dimensions considerably, suggesting that they were large, but in the region of 9 to 12 metres, rather than the more dramatic lengths
suggested by Cuvier, Mantell, and Buckland on previous occasions.
Furthermore, Owen speculated a little more on the anatomy and
biology of these animals in words that have an extraordinary
resonance in the light of today’s interpretations of the biology
and way of life of dinosaurs.
Owen’s conception was therefore one of very stout, but egg-laying
and scaly (because they were still reptiles) creatures resembling the
largest mammals to be found in the tropical regions of the Earth
today; his dinosaurs were in effect the crowning glory of a time
on Earth when egg-laying and scaly-skinned reptiles reigned
supreme. Owen’s dinosaurs were the ancient world’s equivalents of
present-day elephants, rhinos, and hippos. Looked at purely from
the logic of scientific deduction, based on such meagre remains, this
was not only brilliantly incisive, but an altogether revolutionary
vision of creatures from the ancient past. Such breathtaking vision
is all the more remarkable when it is juxtaposed to the ‘gigantic
lizard’ models, though these were entirely reasonable and logical
interpretations built on established and respected Cuvierian
principles of comparative anatomy.
The creation of the Dinosauria had other important purposes at the
time. The reports also offered a sweeping refutation of the general
progressionist and transmutationist movements within the fields
of biology and geology during the first half of the 19th century.
Progressionists noted that the fossil record seemed to show that life
had become progressively more complex: the earliest rocks showed
the simplest forms of life, while more recent rocks showed evidence
of more complex creatures. Transmutationists noted that members
of one species were not identical and pondered whether this
variability might also allow species to change over time. Jean
Baptiste de Lamarck, a colleague of Cuvier in Paris, had suggested
that animal species might transmute, or change, in form over time
through the inheritance of acquired characteristics. These ideas
challenged the widely held, biblically inspired belief that God had
created all creatures on Earth, and were being widely and
acrimoniously discussed.
Dinosaurs, and indeed several of the groups of organisms
recognized in the God-fearing Owen’s reports, provided evidence
that life on Earth did not demonstrate an increase in complexity
over time – in fact quite the reverse. Dinosaurs were anatomically
reptiles (that is to say, members of the general group of egg-laying,
cold-blooded, scaly vertebrates); however, the reptiles living today
were a degenerate group of creatures when compared to Owen’s
magnificent dinosaurs that had lived during Mesozoic times. In
short, Owen was attempting to strangle the radical, scientifically
driven intellectualism of the time in order to re-establish an
understanding of the diversity of life that had its basis closer to the
views espoused by Reverend William Paley in his book entitled
Natural Theology in which God held centre-stage as the Creator
and Architect of all Nature’s creatures.
Owen’s fame grew steadily through the 1840s and 1850s, and he
became involved in the committees associated with the planning of
the relocated Great Exhibition of 1854. It is a curious fact that
Owen, for all his burgeoning fame, was not first choice as the
scientific director for the construction of the dinosaurs – Gideon
Mantell was. Mantell refused on the grounds of persistent
ill-health, and also because he was exceedingly wary of the risks
associated with popularizing scientific work, particularly the risk of
misrepresentating imperfectly developed ideas.
Mantell’s story ended in tragedy: his obsession with fossils and
the development of a personal museum led to the collapse of his
medical practice, and his family disintegrated (his wife left him and
his surviving children emigrated once they were old enough to leave
home). The diary that he kept for much of his life makes melancholy
reading; in his final years he was left lonely and racked by chronic
back pain, and he died of a self-administered overdose of
laudanum.
Although outflanked by the ambitious, brilliant, and crucially
full-time, scientist Owen, Mantell spent much of the last decade
of his life continuing research on ‘his’ Iguanodon. He produced
a series of scientific articles and extremely popular books
summarizing many of his new discoveries, and he was the first to
realize (in 1851) that Owen’s vision of the dinosaurs (or at least
Iguanodon) as stout ‘elephantine reptiles’ was probably wrong.
Further discoveries of jaws with teeth, and further analysis of the
partial skeleton (the ‘Mantel-piece’), revealed that Iguanodon had
strong back legs and smaller, weaker front limbs. As a result, he
concluded that its posture may have had much more in common
with the ‘upright’ reconstructions of giant ground sloths
(paradoxically inspired by Owen’s detailed description of the fossil
ground sloth Mylodon). Unfortunately, this work was overlooked,
largely because of the excitement and publicity surrounding Owen’s
Crystal Palace dinosaur models. The truth of Mantell’s suspicions,
and the strength of his own intellect, were not to be revealed for a
further 30 years, and through another amazing piece of serendipity.
Dinosaurs: facts and fiction
Dinosaurs were ‘borne’ officially in 1842 as a result of some truly
brilliant and intuitive detective work by the British anatomist
Richard Owen (Figure 1), whose work had concentrated upon
the unique nature of some extinct British fossil reptiles.
At the time of Owen’s review, he was working on a surprisingly
meagre collection of fossil bones and teeth that had been discovered
up to that time and were scattered around the British Isles.
Although the birth of dinosaurs was relatively inauspicious
(first appearing as an afterthought in the published report of the
11th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science), they were soon to become the centre of worldwide
attention. The reason for this was simple. Owen worked in London,
at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at a time when the
British Empire was probably at its greatest extent. To celebrate such
influence and achievement, the Great Exhibition of 1851 was
devised. To house this event a huge temporary exhibition hall
(Joseph Paxton’s steel and glass ‘Crystal Palace’) was built on Hyde
Park in central London.
Rather than destroy the wonderful exhibition hall at the end of 1851
it was moved to a permanent site at the London suburb ofSydenham (the future Crystal Palace Park). The parkland
surrounding the exhibition building was landscaped and arranged
thematically, and one of the themes depicted scientific endeavour
in the form of natural history and geology and how they had
contributed to unravelling the Earth’s history. This geological
theme park, probably one of the earliest of its kind, included
reconstructions of genuine geological features (caves, limestone
pavements, geological strata) as well as representations of the
2
Dinosaurs
inhabitants of the ancient world. Owen, in collaboration with
the sculptor and entrepreneur Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins,
populated the parkland with gigantic iron-framed and
concrete-clad models of dinosaurs (Figure 2) and other prehistoric
creatures known at this time. The advance publicity generated
before the relocated ‘Great Exhibition’ was re-opened in June
1854 included a celebratory dinner held on New Year’s Eve 1853
within the belly of a half-completed model of the dinosaur
Iguanodon and this ensured considerable public awareness of
Owen’s dinosaurs.
The fact that dinosaurs were extinct denizens of hitherto
unsuspected earlier worlds, and were the literal embodiment of
the dragons of myth and legend, probably guaranteed their
adoption by society at large; they even appeared in the works of
Charles Dickens, who was a personal acquaintance of Richard
Owen. From such evocative beginnings public interest in dinosaurs
has been nurtured and maintained ever since. Quite why the appeal
should have been so persistent has been much speculated upon;
it may have much to do with the importance of story-telling as a
means of stimulating human imaginative and creative abilities. It
strikes me as no coincidence that in humans the most formative
years of intellectual growth and cultural development, between the
ages of about 3 and 10 years, are often those when the enthusiasm
for dinosaurs is greatest – as many parents can testify. The buzz of
excitement created when children glimpse their first dinosaur
skeleton is almost palpable. Dinosaurs, as the late Stephen Jay
Gould – arguably our greatest popularizer of scientific natural
history – memorably remarked, are popular because they are ‘big,
scary and [fortunately for us] dead’, and it is true that their gaunt
skeletons exert a gravitational pull on the imaginative landscape of
youngsters.
brilliant and intuitive detective work by the British anatomist
Richard Owen (Figure 1), whose work had concentrated upon
the unique nature of some extinct British fossil reptiles.
At the time of Owen’s review, he was working on a surprisingly
meagre collection of fossil bones and teeth that had been discovered
up to that time and were scattered around the British Isles.
Although the birth of dinosaurs was relatively inauspicious
(first appearing as an afterthought in the published report of the
11th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science), they were soon to become the centre of worldwide
attention. The reason for this was simple. Owen worked in London,
at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at a time when the
British Empire was probably at its greatest extent. To celebrate such
influence and achievement, the Great Exhibition of 1851 was
devised. To house this event a huge temporary exhibition hall
(Joseph Paxton’s steel and glass ‘Crystal Palace’) was built on Hyde
Park in central London.
Rather than destroy the wonderful exhibition hall at the end of 1851
it was moved to a permanent site at the London suburb ofSydenham (the future Crystal Palace Park). The parkland
surrounding the exhibition building was landscaped and arranged
thematically, and one of the themes depicted scientific endeavour
in the form of natural history and geology and how they had
contributed to unravelling the Earth’s history. This geological
theme park, probably one of the earliest of its kind, included
reconstructions of genuine geological features (caves, limestone
pavements, geological strata) as well as representations of the
2
Dinosaurs
inhabitants of the ancient world. Owen, in collaboration with
the sculptor and entrepreneur Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins,
populated the parkland with gigantic iron-framed and
concrete-clad models of dinosaurs (Figure 2) and other prehistoric
creatures known at this time. The advance publicity generated
before the relocated ‘Great Exhibition’ was re-opened in June
1854 included a celebratory dinner held on New Year’s Eve 1853
within the belly of a half-completed model of the dinosaur
Iguanodon and this ensured considerable public awareness of
Owen’s dinosaurs.
The fact that dinosaurs were extinct denizens of hitherto
unsuspected earlier worlds, and were the literal embodiment of
the dragons of myth and legend, probably guaranteed their
adoption by society at large; they even appeared in the works of
Charles Dickens, who was a personal acquaintance of Richard
Owen. From such evocative beginnings public interest in dinosaurs
has been nurtured and maintained ever since. Quite why the appeal
should have been so persistent has been much speculated upon;
it may have much to do with the importance of story-telling as a
means of stimulating human imaginative and creative abilities. It
strikes me as no coincidence that in humans the most formative
years of intellectual growth and cultural development, between the
ages of about 3 and 10 years, are often those when the enthusiasm
for dinosaurs is greatest – as many parents can testify. The buzz of
excitement created when children glimpse their first dinosaur
skeleton is almost palpable. Dinosaurs, as the late Stephen Jay
Gould – arguably our greatest popularizer of scientific natural
history – memorably remarked, are popular because they are ‘big,
scary and [fortunately for us] dead’, and it is true that their gaunt
skeletons exert a gravitational pull on the imaginative landscape of
youngsters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)