The I sle of W ight and its crucial role in the ‘invention’ of dinosaurs

Dinosaurs were ‘invented’ in A pril 1842. Any history, before this, must separate periods of pre‐history. The first covers the period before 1824 (when the first dinosaur genus M egalosaurus was described). Here the I sle of W ight discloses a forgotten pioneer in natural history, the stone mason/sculptor J ames H ay ( c . 1748–1821) who may well have included, by 1818, such dino‐to‐be material in his remarkable P ortsmouth museum. This was described on his death as ‘the best private collection in the kingdom’. Sadly, his material is lost, and no accurate diagnosis is possible. The second period extends from 1824 to 1842. The significant figure here is the R ussia and E ast I ndies merchant J ames V ine (1774–1837), who first revealed how I guanodon bones occurred in abundance in the I sland's south‐west coastal outcrops. One, between S eptember 1841 and A pril 1842, revealed to R ichard O wen his long‐sought fossil sacrum of an I guanodon . This was in the private L ondon museum of the political radical W . D . S aull (1783–1855). The discovery of this single fossil enabled O wen to ‘invent’ dinosaurs. He later wrote of this historic specimen how ‘the characters of the order D inosauria were mainly founded on this specimen’. So, in a real sense, the I sle of W ight is the birthplace of D inosaurs. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2014, 113 , 664–676.