Classic engraving from 1885, depicting big tree-like Lepidodendron lycophytes thriving throughout
the Carboniferous Interval (public area)
I’ve all the time been fascinated by zoological
misidentifications, whether or not unintentional or deliberate. So here’s a really
outrageous instance of the latter selection that I lately investigated.
Throughout early 1851, publicity broadsides
have been being posted on partitions across the Welsh city of Neath to attract public consideration
(and attendance) to an eyecatching object at present being exhibited within the city
corridor throughout three consecutive days (30 and 31 January and 1 February). For
in line with the broadside, the item was none apart from a really sizeable fossil
serpent, 8 ft 3 in lengthy and seven in throughout.
Broadside for exhibition of alleged fossil serpent at Neath’s city corridor, early 1851 (public area)
As revealed by F.J. North within the second version
of his guide Coal, and the Coalfields in
Wales (1931), nevertheless, it was truly the trunk of an unlimited, superficially
tree-like, however long-extinct lycophyte plant associated to membership mosses and (particularly)
quillworts.
Often called Lepidodendron, it
thrived in the course of the Carboniferous Interval round 360 million years in the past, and
attained a colossal top of as much as 180 ft. Its fossils are discovered preserved in
coal deposits, and it’s characterised by its trunk’s noticeably scaly outer
floor (Lepidodendron truly
interprets as ‘scale tree’), though its ‘scales’ are literally leaf scars,
created when its leaves fell off.
Portion of fossil Lepidodendron
bark exhibited on the Houston Museum of Pure Science, Houston, Texas, USA (copyright free)
Furthermore, the true botanical id of Lepidodendron fossils had been identified to
scientists for a number of years earlier than this exhibition. So one can solely assume
that the latter’s organiser didn’t intend to let a mere technicality just like the
reality stand in the way in which of constructing some simple cash from scientifically-naive guests
anxious to see the mortal stays of an alleged prehistoric serpent!
Certainly, novice
exhibitions at sideshows and gala’s of comparable Lepidodendron specimens masquerading in greatest Barnumesque vogue as
big fossil snakes and even lizards have been not at all unusual again then. And for one more monstrous misidentification that includes a supposed fossil snake, make sure you click on right here to learn all concerning the bothersome Bothrodon.
Pictured right here in 1851, the exact same 12 months because the Neath exhibition, the good(est)
showman Phineas T. Barnum – he of the faux Feejee mermaids and different zoological frauds displayed by him in the course of the 1800s – would little doubt have authorized! (public area)