The study of fossils is closely linked to the understanding of organisms, such as plants and animals, that lived in the past, a discipline known as paleontology.
The understanding of ancient life involves the search for traces, traces or remains in the form of skeletons and shells of prehistoric animals or plants. Without these elements it is impossible to understand what the early Earth was like.
Paleontology is a science that depends, therefore, on a bit of luck — it is not always easy to find fossilized remains — and on a great deal of knowledge to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The first fossil discoveries date back to the Old Kingdom, but at the time it was believed that they were the result of the flood that wiped out the animals.
The understanding of how the remains of past organisms can help to explain the origin and evolution of current organisms would only come centuries later, with the discoveries of Charles Darwin and the theory of natural selection, enshrined in his book “The Origin of Species through Natural selection”.
Then came the first studies that associated the presence of fossils with geological time. Since then, discoveries in the field of paleontology have increasingly helped to understand what the environment and living beings were like in the past.
Below are some of the greatest paleontologists (and paleontologists) known.
George Cuvier (1769-1832)
The French naturalist, also called “father of paleontology”, laid the foundations of comparative anatomy. From his studies at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, Cuvier observed that although some body parts in different animals are similar, such as the wings of birds and bats, they did not have a common ancestral origin. Comparing the form of fossil organisms to those of living animals he demonstrated how living beings are subject to extinction. Cuvier was a hands-on anatomist and worked with virtually every animal group, describing hundreds of species. Despite this, he was a catastrophist and did not believe in evolution, but rather that the fossil record showed the result of a major mass extinction event: the Great Flood.
Mary Ann (1795-1869) e Gideon Mantell (1790-1852)
The first known dinosaur bones were found by the couple in 1822 in Sussex, southern England. In addition to fragments of long bones, the couple found serrated teeth that belonged to the extinct animal. As the teeth were similar to those of modern iguana lizards, the species was named iguanadon. Mantell published a book with his fossil finds and was awarded the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society of London in 1835. Today, it is known that both the fossil specimen and other materials found in the same region and in other locations of similar age belong to a group of herbivorous dinosaurs known as iguanodons.
Mary Anning (1799-1847)
The British is considered the first female paleontologist – as a woman, she was unable to study in the area and publish scientific articles. Anning was responsible for the discovery of dozens of fossils in the Lyme Regis region of southwest England, including the complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur — found when he was 12 years old — a plesiosaur, the first pterosaurs outside Germany and fish. fossils. His father was a fossil collector and seller, and Anning’s finds were turned over to the Geological Society of London. The original skeletons she found are displayed in a hallway at the Natural History Museum in London.
Richard Owen (1804-1892)
Also English, is considered the “father” of dinosaurs. He coined the term Dinosauria, to designate the fossils of “terrible lizards” that he studied at the Natural History Museum in London. A controversial figure, Owen was an anatomist, paleontologist and naturalist, but he opposed Darwin’s theory of evolution and received accusations of stealing the work of newer researchers and publishing it as his own. He described dozens of species of fossils, mainly reptiles, including several dinosaurs, and also mammals, such as the first giant sloth fossils (Megatherium) e Glyptodon (an ancestor species of the giant armadillos that lived in South America) known.
Edward D. Cope (1840-1897)
The American fought a battle with Othniel Marsh (see below) for more than two decades for the title of paleontologist who found the most dinosaurs. The dispute, however, was fierce, as Cope found more than 1,000 fossils in the US over his 22 years as a researcher at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Among the finds are a complete skeleton of a plesiosaur of the genus Elasmosaurus, dozens of fossils of mammals and dinosaurs like the Camarasaurus it’s the Dimetrodon.
Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899)
Along with Edward Cope, the American paleontologist Othniel Marsh was responsible for the description of more than 130 species of dinosaurs, among which the carnivore Allosaurus and the herbivores Stegosaurus e Triceratops. His specialty, however, was the study of early horse fossils. The dispute between Marsh and Cope became known as the “war of bones” and one of the main legacies of that war was the fortification of American science and the creation of natural history museums in that country throughout the 19th century.
Edwin H. Colbert (1905-2001)
The American was one of the leading names in paleontology in the 20th century, having contributed for 40 years to the field studies of the team at the Museum of Natural History in New York. In addition to having discovered the first fossils of therapsids, primitive mammals that resembled reptiles, the paleontologist collected dinosaur fossils in Antarctica that helped prove the theory of continental drift (that all continents were a single one millions of years ago), among which the dinosaur Lystrosaurus, 220 million years old, and described dozens of other species. In 1959, Colbert coordinated an expedition in Brazil with paleontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price (see below).
Llewellyn Ivor Price (1905-1980)
He was the first Brazilian paleontologist. The son of American parents, Price was born in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, and completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in the United States. Back in Brazil in the 1940s, he worked until his retirement at the National Department of Mineral Production (former DNPM, now linked to the National Mining Agency). He published more than 50 studies, many on stratigraphy, and was responsible for the excavation of the first Brazilian dinosaur, the Staurikosaurus, from the Santa Maria Triassic (about 227 million years ago). He started paleontological studies in the region of Peirópolis, in Uberaba (MG), an important fossiliferous site from the Cretaceous (estimated age of 100 to 65 million years), and helped to create the Brazilian Society of Paleontology.
Joseph Bonaparte (1928-2020)
The Argentine paleontologist has contributed enormously to the study of fossils in South America. With the exception of nations such as the United States and China, few countries have such a comprehensive knowledge of their fossil fauna, and Argentina is one of them — it was there that Bonaparte found bones of giant dinosaurs of the group of titanosaurs and also important species of mammals that lived more than 11 thousand years ago, in the last Ice Age. Bonaparte also mentored dozens of young paleontologists in Argentina and founded the “Carlos Ameghino” Municipal Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires, one of the main paleontology research institutions in South America.
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