Chapter ID: CBB880697902

Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle's Contribution to the Popularity of Pterodactyls (2013)

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Pterodactyls or pterosaurs, well-known flying reptiles of the Mesozoic, were already compared with dragons and vampires well before the discovery of the spectacularly large species from North America with wing spans of over 6 m. First described in 1784, they were not recognized as flying reptiles until 1801, when Baron Cuvier described a specimen that a few years later he called Ptero Dactyle which later became Pterodactylus. The name Pterodactylus is technically invalid – it is a junior synonym of Ornithocephalus Soemmerring 1812 – but it has stuck in the psyche of both palaeontologists and public alike. By the end of the nineteenth century numerous workers had compared pterosaurs with demons, dragons and vampires and life restorations had appeared in books, magazines and as gargoyles on the external architecture of the Natural History Museum, London. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famously the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a polymath, with interests in science, sport, politics, travel, the occult and of course writing. He trained as, and became, a physician, with an eventually thriving general practice in Southsea, Hampshire from 1882 to 1890. In 1912, first as a series in Sunday magazines in the USA and in Strand Magazine in the UK, and shortly after as a hardback, he published The Lost World, an adventure story about the exploration of a South American tableland with prehistoric creatures that had persisted to the present. Although dinosaurs existed in this anachronistic fictional ecosystem, the ‘star’ animals were pterodactyls. Here we discuss the notoriety of pterodactyls generated by The Lost World, and hold Conan Doyle responsible for the widespread popularity of these iconic prehistoric reptiles right up to the present day.

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Book C. J. Duffin; R. T. J. Moody; C. Gardner-Thorpe (2013) A History of Geology and Medicine. unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Rieppel, Lukas
Rich, Thomas H. V.
Cameron, Marlena Briane
Fallon, Richard
Jones, Elizabeth D.
Tamborini, Marco
Concepts
Dinosaurs
Fossils
Paleontology
Natural history
Museums
Science and literature
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
21st century
20th century, late
Gilded Age (1870s-1900)
Places
United States
Australia
Great Britain
Wyoming (U.S.)
Mediterranean region
Tanzania (Tanganyika, Zanzibar)
Institutions
University of Wyoming
Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin)
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