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Historical Bibliography Updated: June 16, 2026

Report on British fossil reptiles. Part II. In: Report of the eleventh meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Plymouth, July 1841, pp. 60-204.

Publication Details

London: John Murray, 1841 CE.

In this review article Owen coined the term Dinosaur (pp. 102-103). In surveying fossil bones and teeth found by Gideon Mantell, William Buckland, and others, he observed that three genera--Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, and Hylaeosurus--shared similarities in the structure of their vertebrae and elephant-like posture. For this reason Owen classified them as a sub-order in the Saurian order, and called them Dinosauria, meaning terrible lizards. Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Thematic Classifications

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#13694
Permanent Linkhttps://hom-sveltekit.fly.dev/entry/15976
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLreport-on-british-fossil-reptiles-part-ii

Geographic Context

Publication place: London