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 Lhuyd in his Lithophylacii Brittannici Ichnographia, 1699. He attributed the fossils to fish. In 1708, Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer attributed two ichthyosaur vertebrae to a man who drowned during the Biblical flood. In 1783, an ichthyosaur jaw with teeth was exhibited by the Society for Promoting Natural History as those of a crocodilian.
Continue reading