did our understanding of their extensive convergence grow piece by piece. To be sure, the basic similarity with fishes had never been doubted. In fact, the first two published references, both in 1708, mistook ichthyosaur vertebrae for the backbone of a fish. Both the celebrated Swiss naturalist J. J. Scheuchzer, in his Querelae Piscium (Complaints of the Fishes) and the German J. J. Baier, in his work on fossils from the area of Nuremberg, presented figures of ichthyosaur vertebrae for a most interesting purpose: to maintain that fossils are true remains of creatures that once lived, and not some manifestation of a plastic force inherent in rocks and ordained to establish global order by eliciting parallel forms in the organic and inorganic realms (an idea that strikes us as absurd today, but that made lingering sense within a neo-Platonic ideology not yet fully dispersed by the causal theories of Newton and Descartes).
Both Scheuchzer and Baier argued that these “fish” fossils recorded the devastation of Noah’s flood. Scheuchzer’s work is written as a humorous conversation among fossil fishes annoyed at humans who do not recognize their organic nature and affinity with living relatives. As for Baier, I recently had the pleasure of purchasing a copy of his rare work, without the slightest expectation that I would soon, or ever, have any practical or immediate use for this beautiful book. What a pleasure, then, to read his two page discussion of “ichthyospondyli” (fish vertebrae), with its conclusion that we must view them “ pro piscibus vere petrificatis…pro universalis Diluvii reliquiis ”—as truly petrified fish, remains of the universal flood.
Better evidence, primarily from bones of the skull and paddles, revealed the reptilian nature of ichthyosaurs by the early nineteenth century, but strong convergence upon fishes remained the prevailing theme of most writing. Nonetheless, though skeletons revealed the streamlined body and fishlike paddles, two missing pieces conspired to prevent any full appreciation for the true (and awesome) extent of convergence—for the back and tail fins, as soft structures, had not been discovered. All the early reconstructions—by Buckland, Conybeare, de la Beche, Hawkins, and other worthies of early English geology—showed a slithering serpent without back or tail fins, not the reptilian embodiment of a swordfish. How, then, did the two key pieces fall into the piscine puzzle?
Richard Owen’s note of 1838 stands as the chief document in this resolution. Thanks largely to keen insight and uncanny field work from Mary Anning, and to support from the demented and eccentric Thomas Hawkins (whose monographs of 1834 and 1840 must rank as the craziest documents ever written in paleontology), many good skeletons of ichthyosaurs were collected in England during the early nineteenth century. Owen had noticed an apparent peculiarity in one fine specimen—a sharp downward bend in the sequence of rear vertebrae at about two-thirds the distance from the back flippers to the end of the tail. Owen gave little thought to this tailbend, reasoning that it only represented an anomaly (probably a postmortem artifact) of a single specimen. But when skeleton after skeleton showed a tailbend in the same position, Owen realized that he had stumbled upon a phenomenon worthy of explanation. Owen wrote:
Caricature of ichthyosaurs by Henry de la Beche, made in the early nineteenth century before the back and tail fins had been discovered. Courtesy of Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History .
Having recently examined many saurian skeletons now in London, the greater part of which have been disencumbered of their earthy shroud by the chisel of Mr. Hawkins, a condition of the tail which, on a former occasion, in a single instance had arrested my attention, but without calling up any theory to account for it, now more forcibly engaged my thought, from observing that it
Both Scheuchzer and Baier argued that these “fish” fossils recorded the devastation of Noah’s flood. Scheuchzer’s work is written as a humorous conversation among fossil fishes annoyed at humans who do not recognize their organic nature and affinity with living relatives. As for Baier, I recently had the pleasure of purchasing a copy of his rare work, without the slightest expectation that I would soon, or ever, have any practical or immediate use for this beautiful book. What a pleasure, then, to read his two page discussion of “ichthyospondyli” (fish vertebrae), with its conclusion that we must view them “ pro piscibus vere petrificatis…pro universalis Diluvii reliquiis ”—as truly petrified fish, remains of the universal flood.
Better evidence, primarily from bones of the skull and paddles, revealed the reptilian nature of ichthyosaurs by the early nineteenth century, but strong convergence upon fishes remained the prevailing theme of most writing. Nonetheless, though skeletons revealed the streamlined body and fishlike paddles, two missing pieces conspired to prevent any full appreciation for the true (and awesome) extent of convergence—for the back and tail fins, as soft structures, had not been discovered. All the early reconstructions—by Buckland, Conybeare, de la Beche, Hawkins, and other worthies of early English geology—showed a slithering serpent without back or tail fins, not the reptilian embodiment of a swordfish. How, then, did the two key pieces fall into the piscine puzzle?
Richard Owen’s note of 1838 stands as the chief document in this resolution. Thanks largely to keen insight and uncanny field work from Mary Anning, and to support from the demented and eccentric Thomas Hawkins (whose monographs of 1834 and 1840 must rank as the craziest documents ever written in paleontology), many good skeletons of ichthyosaurs were collected in England during the early nineteenth century. Owen had noticed an apparent peculiarity in one fine specimen—a sharp downward bend in the sequence of rear vertebrae at about two-thirds the distance from the back flippers to the end of the tail. Owen gave little thought to this tailbend, reasoning that it only represented an anomaly (probably a postmortem artifact) of a single specimen. But when skeleton after skeleton showed a tailbend in the same position, Owen realized that he had stumbled upon a phenomenon worthy of explanation. Owen wrote:
Caricature of ichthyosaurs by Henry de la Beche, made in the early nineteenth century before the back and tail fins had been discovered. Courtesy of Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History .
Having recently examined many saurian skeletons now in London, the greater part of which have been disencumbered of their earthy shroud by the chisel of Mr. Hawkins, a condition of the tail which, on a former occasion, in a single instance had arrested my attention, but without calling up any theory to account for it, now more forcibly engaged my thought, from observing that it
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