Sir Richard Owen, 1804-1892

Owen became rather famous as a paleontologist and naturalist. He continued to publish scientific articles, and he became friends with Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family. It was this notoriety and friendship that caused Queen Victoria to ask Owen to oversee the construction of the prehistoric life display at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace Park in London. On New Year's Day 1853, Owen and Waterhouse Hawkins, the sculptor who made the dinosaur exhibits, had dinner in the body of a partially completed Iguanodon sculpture. The sculpture was large enough for Owen, Hawkins, twenty guests, and the table and chairs!

In his scientific publications, Owen named and described the following dinosaurs: Anthodon (1876), Bothriospondylus (1875), Cardiodon (1841), Cetiosaurus (1841 - but Owen incorrectly thought that it was a kind of crocodile and not a dinosaur), Chondrosteosaurus (1876), Cimoliornis (1846), Cladeidon (1841), Coloborhynchus (1874), Dacentrurus (1875), Dinodocus (1884), Echinodon (1861), Massospondylus (1854), Nuthetes (1854), Polacanthus (1867), and Scelidosaurus (1859). Owen also wrote the first English language book about general paleontology.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, Owen disagreed with Darwin's theories of evolution, as well as those of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. Owen believed that the dominant life forms had arisen through special creation, without ancestors. He published several articles discussing his beliefs. This led to his achademic downfall, as he was considered to be old-fashioned in his refusal to even consider Darwin or Lamarck's theories.

He was often called "the English Cuvier" (after Georges Cuvier, 1769 to 1832), the famous French anatomist and paleontologist). But Owen did not like this moniker, as he considered himself to be quite superior to Cuvier! Although Owen is best known for naming the Dinosauria, he actually preferred mammals, because he considered them to be of a higher order than the dinosaurs and other lowly reptiles. Before he named the Dinosauria, he described and named Glyptodon ("carved tooth") in 1839.

More information about Richard Owen

Dinosauria On-line

You can also read Stephen Jay Gould's article "An Awful, Terrible Dinosaurian Irony" in the February 1998 issue of Natural History

Paleontologist Biographies

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