Patrick N Wyse Jackson

Academic paper

Geological Curator (May 2004)

8

1

11-18

A number of casts of complete or portions of plesiosaurs from the Lower Jurassic of England are stored or displayed in the Geological Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. The historical significance of these has only relatively recently been realised. They include specimens from the collections of Thomas Hawkins, William Willoughby Cole the Earl of Enniskillen, and the Bristol City Museum. They came into the possession of Trinity College, Dublin either by donation from the Geological Society of Dublin in 1848 or from William Johnston Sollas in the late 1800s. These casts include the holotype of Thalassiodracon hawkinsi (Owen, 1838); a "sternum" and "scapula" illustrated by Thomas Hawkins and now referable to Eurycleidus arcuatus (Owen, 1840); a complete skeleton of Plesiosaurus macrocephalus Owen, 1838; the right and left side of a skull of Eurypterygius communis (Conybeare, 1822) the original of which was at the Birmingham Philosophical Institution; the skull and the right front flipper of Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus (Stutchbury, 1846); and a badly damaged cast of Attenborosaurus conybeari (Sollas, 1881). The latter two examples are important because the originals once in Bristol were destroyed in 1940 during the Second World War.

English