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From the Experts: Recommended Fossil Books!

We hope you’ve been enjoying the fossil-mania this week with Fossil Stories! We’ve been exploring the fascinating history of paleontology, learning some great fossil facts, and hearing from experts (via a series of live webcasts) about current fossil research.

Our posts have demonstrated the important role that natural history publications have played in the history of paleontology. These works disseminated new research and ideas, documented the evolution of human knowledge about fossils and their origins, and recorded the first scientific descriptions of many ancient creatures.

But this literature is important not just for the historical information it provides. It is also highly relevant to modern paleontological research.

“Traditional ways of knowing about the fossil record are still relevant for modern questions in paleontology because specimens matter,” explains Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “Many important fossils were intially described and published in monographic, folio formats, and in many cases, those descriptions can be still be used 100-150 years later. I use them all the time.”

And indeed he does. During a recent trip to Argentina, Dr. Pyenson was able to compare specimens in the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales with illustrations of those specimens in BHL alongside 3D scans of the related cetacean.

The importance of historic literature to modern fossil research is echoed by those in the field of paleobotany as well.

“Just as in research on living plant and animal biodiversity, research on the fossil record of plants and animals depends crucially on the published literature,” emphasizes Dr. Patrick Herendeen, Director of Systematics and Evolutionary Biology at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “Plant systematics literature goes back hundreds of years, and having access to this literature is essential for ongoing research in plant taxonomy and systematics. This is equally true for paleobotany.”

Knowing that historic literature is so important to modern paleontological work, we asked paleontologists at several BHL partner institutions to share some of their favorite historic publications with us. We think the results constitute a pretty awesome Recommended Reading List for Paleontology Enthusiasts!

Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues 
Chair, Department of Paleobiology. Curator of Fossil Vertebrates.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

“Not surprisingly, my favorite early book on paleontology is Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupèdes by G. Cuvier (first published in 1812, with three later editions). Not only did it found the scientific study of fossil vertebrates but it is written in a clear yet elegant style but that makes it a pleasure to read. Cuvier did not just describe fossils but tried to interpret their anatomy in functional terms. As a foundational work in the field, it will always be relevant to researchers interested in the fossil record of backboned animals.”

Dr. Maria A. Gandolfo 
Senior Researcher, L.H. Bailey Hortorium, Plant Biology Section 
School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University

Dr. Gandolfo’s favorite early paleobotany book is Ancient Plants, written by Mary C. Stopes in 1910. When asked why it is her favorite, Dr. Gandolfo referred to a quote from the book: “The lore of the plants which have successively clothed this ancient earth during the thousands of centuries before men appeared is generally ignored or tossed on one side with a contemptuous comment on the dullness and ‘dryness’ of fossil botany.” According to Dr. Gandolfo, “This book was written in 1910 and even after 105 years of incredible advances in the field of Paleobotany, this sentence still reflects what people feels about Paleobotany.”

Dr. Peter J. Makovicky
Department Chair and Associate Curator, Department of Geology
The Field Museum

The Ceratopsia are a group of herbivorous, beaked dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period. They include such iconic genera as Triceratops and Montanoceratops. The name Ceratopsia was coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1890, and in 1907 he, along with John B. Hatcher and Richard S. Lull, published a monograph on the group, entitled The Ceratopsia. According to Dr. Makovicky, this work is one of his favorites and a classic amongst the pre-1923 published materials.

Dr. William A. DiMichele 
Research Paleontologist and Curator 
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Dr. DiMichele’s favorite historic paleontology work is Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous Formation in Pennsylvania and Throughout the United States, by Leo Lesquereux (1879-80). According to Dr. DiMichele, “This is the foundational book/atlas on American Carboniferous (coal age) floras and contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of many of the species that occur commonly in coal fields of the eastern and midwestern US. Many of the species that occur in the rocks I study were first described in this set of volumes, so the books remain a primary source of information to which I turn regularly.”

Dr. Karl J. Niklas 
The Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology 
Cornell University

Dr. Niklas’ favorite historic paleontological work is The Origin of a Land Flora (1908) written by F. O. Bower. According to Dr. Niklas, “This book presents the first conceptualization of the evolution of ‘The Alternation of Generations’ in the land plants. I have worked on the evolution of plant body plans and the evolution of plant life cycles,” thus making this work particularly relevant to Dr. Niklas’ research.

Dr. Nicholas D. Pyenson
Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Dr. Pyenson’s favorite historic paleontology book is Ostéographie des cétacés vivants et fossiles (1868-79), by Pierre Joseph Beneden and Paul Gervais. “This work showcased specimens and species that no one had really seen outside of the areas where the specimens were collected,” explains Dr. Pyenson. “It’s a catalog of the world’s whales, and the authors didn’t discriminate between fossil and modern species. It’s cool that these were integrated together into one work this early on, before it was fashionable to do so.”

Thanks to all of our experts for sharing their favorite historic publications with us! We hope you’ve enjoyed our series of blog posts this week highlighting key works in the history of paleontology. Can’t get enough of the fossil publications? Then check out other great works in the BHL Fossil Stories digital book collection.

October 16, 2015by michelle.underhill
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Fossil Stories

Finishing #FossilFossick with #FossilStories

On October 9, we challenged Smithsonian Transcription volunteers to transcribe the field notes of Ladd, Ward, and G. Arthur Cooper. See the details of the challenge here.

It took exactly three and a half days for volunteers to completely transcribe 9 sets of field notes totaling 252 pages. An average of 14 people contributed to each project. The range? 35 people co-opted our longest Cooper journal, while only 3 tackled his shortest 6 page journal.

Here’s what happened in the numbers:

  • 12 total projects completed in those days, including our 9 #FossilFossick Projects! 
  • 30 New volunteers! 
  • 252 pages completed – and 712 Pages total over the challenge dates! 
  • 3.5 Days from launch to completely transcribe and review the #FossilFossick field notes! 
  • Visits from 48 countries including Germany, Ecuador, Turkey, India, and New Zealand 
View Full Size Image

Sharing the Challenge

Through 114 #FossilFossick Tweets and other communication, the #FossilFossick challenge gathered 192.7k impressions. The challenge announcement e-mail was opened by 1,895 people, who in total clicked on links 177 times. The update campaign e-mail sent 3 days later, pushing us through the last 29 pages, was opened by 1,121 people and resulted in 101 link clicks.

Surfacing Connections

We also asked volunteers to help us track correspondents, specimens, and locations. This part of the challenge is on-going! You can still help by reading the completed field notes (perhaps by downloading the PDF) and entering details in this Google Spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/FossilFossick

Finds From #FossilFossick Hunters

What did volunteers find interesting about this challenge? Handwriting to buddies to technology and the real personalities behind scientific field work. First, our volunteers were more than amused by Harry Ladd’s adventures and his playful personality, as well as his colorful pals.

Other volunteers tried to determine whether Ward took a street car, golf cart, or automobile from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

Still others shared information to help one another tackle the challenge – great collaboration even from the start of the event!

What’s Next?

A total success deserves a totally fantastic reward: be sure to tune into the behind-the-scenes tour of Smithsonian fossil collections with Dr. Nicholas Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, via the BHL Periscope on October 26 as a reward for the successful completion of the challenge. More details to come on Twitter and Facebook.

You can explore the field notes in BHL:

You can also read all of the completed #FossilFossick projects by visiting the project pages with these links and downloading the PDFs:

Thanks again to all of our wonderful volunteers who contributed to this challenge! When we collaborate for citizen science, everyone wins!
October 16, 2015by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books, Fossil Stories

Illustrating Fossil Plants: The Enigmatic Artis

Phytology is an historic term, not widely used today, for the study of plants. Antediluvian was a term much used by early paleontologists to describe the “time before the great Biblical flood.” These two terms are necessary to understand the title of an important work in paleobotany: Antediluvian Phytology (1838), by Edmund Tyrell Artis.

The formal study of paleobotany has roots in 1828, when Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart, known as the Father of Paleobotany, published Histoire des végétaux fossiles. A decade after this publication, Artis’ work was published. It was remarkable for including some the best paleobotanical illustrations published up to that time, describing many new-to-science species, and interpreting fossils through the lens of the individual that actually collected the fossils: Artis himself. At the time, many paleontologists obtained fossils from collectors, but did not collect themselves. Understanding the context in which a fossil is found, and the surrounding environment, can have important implications in the analysis and interpretation of the specimen.

These accomplishments are even more remarkable considering the humble origins of Artis himself, which also contributes to much of the mystery surrounding him and his work.

Artis was the son of a carpenter, born in 1789 in the small village of Sweffling in Suffolk, England. After moving to London to work in the wine trade with his uncle, he opened a confectionary shop, where his work caught the eye of the Earl Fitzwilliam, who asked Milton to join his staff at Milton Hall near Castor. Artis proved very adept, and was promoted to House Steward within three years.

Artis often accompanied the Fitzwilliams on their visits to the other family property, Wentworth Woodhouse in south Yorkshire. The region boasted some of the most important coal mines in England, and Artis soon began collecting plant fossils from the area. He amassed a collection of between 1,000-1,500 plant fossils, some of which he described in his only publication, Antediluvian Phytology. The work included 24 illustrations, some based on his own paintings and the rest the work of leading natural history illustrator John Curtis.

Artis and his publication are something of a mystery. For instance, it’s unclear who paid for the publication of his work. There’s no evidence of pre-subscriptions that could have funded the work, or that Fitzwilliam contributed funds to it. Artis himself is not likely to have been able to afford such a venture. Furthermore, Artis was evidently familiar with the relevant natural history literature of the day, but how he gained access to it is alsoa mystery. Artis also apparently had influential friends. He claimed to have met Georges Cuvier, and William Buckland sponsored Artis to become a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1824. How he met Buckland, or when he would have had occasion to meet Cuvier, are unknown.

Artis would later find an interest in archeology, becoming famous for his excavations of the Roman remains near Milton Hall. In 1847, he fell ill, possibly due to exposure to a harsh winter while excavating ruins in Northamptonshire. He died on Christmas Eve, 1847.

Although much mystery still surrounds this enigmatic man, his contributions to the field of paleobotany are forever immortalized through his Antediluvian Phytology.

Fossil Stories

Stay tuned all week for more great fossil fun with our #FossilStories campaign, including:

Follow #FossilStories on Twitter and Facebook to learn more.
October 16, 2015by michelle.underhill
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books, Fossil Stories

Uncovering the Truth about Fossil Feces: Buckland, Anning, and Coprolites

When most people think about fossils, they generally think of body fossils, which are fossilized remains of parts of an organism’s body. But there is another type of fossil: trace fossils. Trace fossils are geological records of biological activity, and they provide important insight into an animal’s behavior.

One important trace fossil, which provides information about an animal’s diet, is the coprolite. That’s a fancy way of saying fossilized feces.

When coprolites were first discovered, they were identified as fossilized fir tree cones or bezoar stones. Bezoar stones were undigested masses found trapped in the gastrointestinal system, and were once believed to have magical properties, capable of neutralizing any poison. As an interesting aside, this claim was put to the test by surgeon Ambroise Paré in 1575. A cook caught stealing was sentenced to death by hanging, but at Paré’s request, agreed to be poisoned instead and fed a bezoar in the hopes that it would prove to be an antidote. The cook died in agony seven hours later.

William Buckland, famous for describing and validly naming the first dinosaur genus, Megalosaurus, had a theory about coprolites. He first became interested while studying cave deposits at Kirkdale. He suspected that the deposits that he found were actually preserved carnivore droppings, and even compared them with spotted hyena droppings in an attempt to prove his hypothesis.

In the mid-1820s, Buckland received the evidence he needed. Famous fossil-hunter Mary Anning provided Buckland with coprolites she discovered in the cliffs near her home in Lyme Regis, England. Anning’s attention was drawn to these objects, as she usually discovered them within the ribs or near the pelvis of the ichthyosaur fossils she was discovering. She also noticed that, when the coprolites were broken open, they sometimes contained fossilized fish bones, scales, and the bones of smaller ichthyosaurs. Mary herself believed them to be fossilized feces.

Buckland published his theory about the true nature of these fossils, and provided the name coprolite, in a paper which he read before the Geological Society of London in 1829 and was later published in the Society’s Transactions in 1835. Buckland recognized Mary Anning by name, giving her credit for her discoveries and deductions.

Fossil Stories

Stay tuned all week for more great fossil fun with our #FossilStories campaign, including:

Follow #FossilStories on Twitter and Facebook to learn more.
October 16, 2015by michelle.underhill
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books, Fossil Stories

The Birth of Dinosaurs: Richard Owen and Dinosauria

Humans have been encountering the fossilized remains of dinosaurs for millennia. The myth of the dragon, for instance, may be based on discoveries of dinosaur fossils. As an example, Chinese historian, Chang Qu mislabeled such a fossil as a dragon in the 4th century B.C.E.

The concept of dinosaurs as a group, however, occurred much more recently…in the nineteenth century, in fact.

The first published description of what is now known to be a dinosaur bone (but was thought to be the thighbone of a giant human at the time) occurred in the seventeenth century. The early nineteenth century saw the first scientifically named dinosaurs, including Megalosaurus and Iguanodon. But the relationship between these extinct giants – as dinosaurs – was not uncovered until the 1840s.

English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen conducted extensive research on fossils during his career. He is perhaps most famous for being the first person to introduce the concept of dinosaurs as a group.

The name Dinosauria is first published in Owen’s Report on British Fossil Reptiles, which was published in 1842 as part of the Report from the 11th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.  Owen used three genera to define his dinosaurs: the carnivorous Megalosaurus, the herbivorous Iguanodon, and armored Hylaeosaurus.

Owen was fascinated by the specimens his peers had discovered. He examined William Buckland’s Megalosaurus specimens at Oxford and Gideon Mantell’s Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus specimens housed in the British Museum. From these, and examinations of other collections (most notably a sacrum from an Iguanodon in the collection of fossil collector William Devonshire Saull that likely first inspired Owen’s discovery), Owen determined that these three animals shared unique anatomical features that united them together while also separating them from other known groups. It was the fusion of five vertebrae at the base of the spine, observed in some of the Megalosaurus and Iguanodon fossils that Owen consulted and inferred in the Hylaeosaurus fragments – a feature unknown in other reptiles – that fueled Owen’s confidence in his new group.

The realization of this relationship among these specimens was Owen’s chief contribution to the field of Dinosaur research. It was a connection other paleontologists of the time had not uncovered. Thus, on the basis of this research and with the publication of his report in 1842, Richard Owen erected the clade Dinosauria and kindled a human love affair with dinosaurs that lasts to this day.

Owen’s chief memoirs, particularly those relating to the relationship between reptiles and extinct forms, were republished as a connected series in his History of British Fossil Reptiles (4 vols. London 1849–1884).

Fossil Stories

Stay tuned all week for more great fossil fun with our #FossilStories campaign, including:

Follow #FossilStories on Twitter and Facebook to learn more.
October 16, 2015by ulib-libraryjobs
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books, Fossil Stories

Mantell and the Armored Dinosaurs

British geologist and paleontologist Gideon Mantell is famous for his contributions to the scientific discovery of dinosaurs. In 1825, he described and validly named the second dinosaur genus, Iguanodon. In 1833, he described another dinosaur, which was later used, along with Iguanodon and Megalosaurus, to define Dinosauria.

A gunpowder explosion at a quarry in Tilgate Forest, West Sussex, revealed a collection of about fifty fossil bone pieces that were acquired by Mantell in 1832. Mantell discovered that the pieces could be combined into a single, partially articulated skeleton, the most complete dinosaur skeleton known at the time. Mantell was at first inclined to attribute the fossils to his previously-named Iguanodon, but William Clift, the curator of the Royal College of Surgeons, doubted the identification, pointing out that several plates and spikes found amongst the fossils were likely body armor, thus indicating that this was a new species. Thus, Mantell decided to create a new genus for the specimen, naming it Hylaeosaurus.

Mantell originally intended to publish the new name within a journal article, but was informed that the paper he had prepared was too long for publication. Rather than rewriting the paper, Mantell decided to publish a book on his fossil finds and include a chapter on Hylaeosaurus within it. Within three weeks, Mantell compiled his notes on his fossil finds together into a single manuscript. Furthermore, being warned by Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, that new nomenclature conventions required that a full species name, rather than just a genus, were required for authorship recognition, Mantell gave his specimen the binomial Hylaeosaurus armatus. The description was published in 1833 within Mantell’s book The Geology of the South-East of England.

Hylaeosaurus was the first ankylosaur (which include the majority of armored dinosaurs) to be scientifically named. Though additional Hylaeosaurus species were named over the years, Hylaeosaurus armatus is currently considered the only valid species in the genus.

Fossil Stories

Stay tuned all week for more great fossil fun with our #FossilStories campaign, including:

Follow #FossilStories on Twitter and Facebook to learn more.
October 16, 2015by michelle.underhill
BHL News, Blog Reel, Campaigns, Fossil Stories

Live Webcast Today! Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the NHMLA Dino Lab

The Dino Lab at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County, is a busy place. The lab is responsible for cleaning and repairing the fossils uncovered by its paleontologists, sculpting missing bones to help fill in fossil gaps, and photographing and archiving the fossils held at the museum. It offers an incredible opportunity for museum visitors to get a true picture of what it takes to prepare a fossil for further research or display in a museum.

How would you like to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dino Lab at NHMLA? Well, you’re in luck! Tune in today, October 16, 2015, at 3pm EST on the NHMLA Periscope account for a live tour of the Dino Lab as part of our Fossil Stories event. You’ll get up close and personal with the specimens being worked on and the people who care for these incredible fossils.

View Full Size Image

To join, simply follow @NHMLA on Periscope (you’ll then receive a notification via Periscope once the event is live) or follow @NHMLA or @BioDivLibrary on Twitter. We’ll tweet out the link to the Periscope event on those accounts once it’s live.

One of the highlights in the Dino Lab is a real T. rex toe bone that museum visitors can actually touch. The toe bone, approximately eight inches long, was collected in northeastern Montana in the 1960s.

The first partial skeleton of a T. rex was discovered by Barnum Brown, assistant curator of the American Museum of Natural History, in eastern Wyoming in 1900. Brown then found another partial skeleton in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana in 1902. H. F. Osborn described both skeletons in a 1905 paper, originally assigning the 1900 skeleton the name Dynamosaurus imperiosus. Within that same paper, he used the 1902 skeleton as the holotype to describe Tyrannosaurus rex. His paper also included a skeletal restoration of T. rex (by William D. Matthew, vertebrate paleontologists and curator at the American Museum of Natural History), the first reconstruction ever published. In 1906, Osborn realized that the D. imperiosus skeletal actually belonged to the same species as the T. rex, and he selected Tyrannosaurus rex as the valid name for the species.

You can see the first publication about the T. rex in BHL, and be sure to tune in today, October 16, at 3pm EST on the NHMLA Periscope account to see the behind-the-scenes tour of the Dino Lab!

October 16, 2015by michelle.underhill
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The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

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