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Dinozaury - historia pierwszych odkryć skamieniałości. "Jest taki jeden moment zupełnie szczególny i niepowtarzalny.......gdy znajdujemy pierwszy okaz."
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The word dinosaur means in Greek ”a terrifying lizard” (”deinos” - terryfying and ”sauros” - lizard). The name for dinosaurs was invented in 1842 by a British doctor and searcher – Richard Owen. The term ”dinosaur” would apply to a group of extinct animals, reptiles which had dominated on Earth for over 150 mln years in the Mesozoic Era called „the Age of Reptiles”.
First dinosaurs appeared on Earth in the Triassic, about 265 mln years ago. By the end of the Cretaceous, about 65 mln years ago all species of dinosaurs had perished in misterious circumstances. Among dinosaurs were both the biggest animals in the world and the most frightening predators.
The skeletons of dinosaurs arose peoples interest already a few centuries ago. The first discoveries of dinousaurs fossils and traces of their life have initiated a course of palaeontologic reaserches which have been carried till these days.
About 300 years BC - ”bones of dragons from
Wucheng”
The first notices regarding the fossils of dinosaurs come from about 300 years BC. The Chinese chronicler Chang Ou wrote about ”the bones of the dragons” from Wucheng in the Sichuan Province.
The
XVII and XVIII centuries - England - the description of the first
bones
Single bones of a huge reptile were also described in
the XVII and XVIII centuries in England.
In 1677 Robert Plot described „an unknown, misterious tigh bone” and concluded that it might have belonged to a gigant which had lived before the Flood. The people migh have not known yet that it regarded the extinct reptiles. As it was stated later, the bone described by Plot was the basis of the tigh bone of theropod, most likely of Megalosaurus.
The
XIX
century – the beginning of the researches on the fossils of
dinosaurs
In the beginning of the XIX century when the fossils became the subject of scientific studies the researchers started to accept the fact that some species of animals die out.
In 1818 an English geologists – Dean William Buckland started a systematic research on the fossils of animals from the whole Europe. He made the first move towards the acknowledgement of dinosaurs as the extinct reptiles. He named the animal whose jaw with teeth had been found in Oxfordshire. He came to a conclusion that it must have belonged to Megalosaurus which means in Greek „the great reptile”.
In
1825 the wife of an English dentist Gideon Mantell had found a
conical bone and a couple of teeth. Mantell stated that the teeth
belonged to a predecessor of contemporary lizard called green iguana
but it is worth to emphasize that the lizard was of gigantic size.
The discovery was named Iguanodon which means „Iguana tooth”.
In various corners of the world people would find the fossils of prehistoric animals but no one supposed then that they belonged to the same species of animals. The brakthrough came in the first part of the XIX century. An English doctor and palaentologist Richard Owen announced that the animals should have been treated as one group, different from contemporary animals because they could have been characterized by common features. In 1849 Owen became „the father” of dinosaurs thanks to the name „Dinosauria” he gave them.
In
1858 a proffesor of anatomy from Philadelphia assembled a nearly
complete skeleton of Hadrosaurus. Numerous fossilized bones which had
been found in the State of New Jersey (the USA) enabled Leid to
draw a new conclusion. He discovered that the animal walked on two
feet and its hind legs were better developed than the front ones.
In 1859 an English naturalist - Charles Darwin published his work on arising of species in the way of natural selection. According to Darwins theory of Evolution the life forms change in time and the living organisms are related to their predecessors. The palaentologic discoveries have proved the theory of evolution.
In 1861 in Southern Germany the first fossil as well as dinosaurs and birds were discovered. Archaeopteryx was a bird which was characterized by a few reptalian features such as a long, bony tail and claws on its wings. Before it evolved its earlier form had certainly resembled a typical dinosaur.
In 1878 in a coal mine in Belgium the skeletons of Iguanodon had been discovered which in most cases turned out to be complete. The discovery from the sourroundings of the Bernissart town included about 40 skeletons. Louis Dollo (1857-1931), the professor and curator of the Museum of Natural History in Brussels reconstructed many of the discovered skeletons. The reconstruction of the skeleton of Iguanodon presented by Dollo had fundamentally differed from the previous one made by Richard Owen and it became the cause of discrepancies in opinions and misunderstandings among the scientists. Accordingly to Mantell Iguanodons conial bone was a nasal horn. Owen presented Iguanodon as a big, four-footed herbivorous animal with a horn on its nostrills. On the other hand, Dolls recontructions had considered Iguanodon as a biped herbivore whose conial horn turned out to be simply his claw. The discoveries were crucial as they confirmed the earlier suppositions that some dinosaurs might have move on two feet. It was also acknowledged that some species of dinosaurs had lived in herds.
Betwen 1870-1890 two American palaentologists who were keen on dinosaurs made a series of spectacular discoveries of the fossils of dinosaurs. They were Othniel Charles Marsh from the University of Yale in Neu Haven and Edward Drinker Cope. At first they had been working together but as the time passed by they started competing with each other. Both of them arranged ex-ploratory expeditions to the west part of the United States. Mash has discovered such specimen as Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops. On the other hand, Cope has discovered and named the fossils of Camarasaurus, Coelophysis and Monoclonius.
Barnum Brown and Henry Fairfield Osborn from the American Museum of Natural History had discovered in Montana the fossils of Tyranosaurus and described them. Charles H. Sternberg and his sons: Charles M. and Levi continued the reaserches originated by Osborn. In chalky settlements in Alberta they have discovered among others Albertosaurus, Edmonton, Styracosaurus and Lambeosaurus.
In 1909 the curator of the Museum in Berlin – Werner Janensch initiated a palaentological expedition of several hundred people to Tanzania. In Tendagur many beautiful specimen were discovered, among them Brachiosaurus. Its skeleton is one of the biggest assembled skeletons in the world. The specimen is presented in the Museum in Berlin.
In 1922 some discoveries were made in China and Mongolia. Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History a group commanded by Roy Chapman Andrews had left for Asia. The purpose of the expedition was to discover the fossils of primitive men, however, the result was far from the assumed one. Besides the fossils of dinosaurs such as Protoceratops, Owiraptor and Welociraptor the researches discovered the first fossils of dinosaurs eggs. In Southern Mongolia the expedition came across the remains of over hundred Protoceratops and a huge amount of fossilized eggs. 30 of the XX century ended the first period of palaentological researches on dinosaurs. The next intensive interest in this subject has occured in 70 and the number of the fans of dinosaurs keeps growing.
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Dinozaur w języku greckim oznacza "straszny jaszczur" ("deinos"- straszny i "sauros"- jaszczur). Nazwę dla określenia dinozaurów wymyślił w 1842 roku brytyjski lekarz i poszukiwacz Richard Owen. Termin dinozaur odnosi się do grupy wymarłych zwierząt , gadów, które panowały na wszystkich lądach Ziemi przez ponad 150 mln lat w erze mezozoicznej, zwanej erą gadów.
Około 300 r. p.n.e. - "kości smoków" z Wucheng .