A Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic Formations

Sir Richard Owen (1804–92) produced a series of monographs on the fossil reptiles found in the Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks of the United Kingdom, describing a wide variety of fossil lizards, turtles, crocodiles, flying reptiles (pterosaurs), marine reptiles and dinosaurs, many of which were new to science and whose names remain in use today. Most of the monographs concentrated on faunas from specific geological formations, but the one Owen began writing as the last in this series, on the Mesozoic Formations (originally published in 1874–7 and gathered together in 1889) described material ranging from the Middle Jurassic through to the Early Cretaceous. It includes the first scientific description of a stegosaurian dinosaur (Omosaurus), which preceded the naming of Stegosaurus from the United States by two years, extensive notes on Jurassic and Cretaceous pterosaurs, and some of the earliest descriptions of the unusual air-filled vertebrae of sauropod dinosaurs.