Arthur Smith Woodward

“ At the same time Sir Thomas Mitchell's discovery of fossil bones in New South Wales provided material for the first of Owen's long series of papers on the extinct mammals of Australia, which were eventually reprinted in book-form in 1877. ”

“ His lecture on " virgin reproduction " or parthenogenesis, however, published in 1849, contained the essence of the theory of the germ-plasm elaborated later by August Weismann; and he made several vague statements concerning the geological succession of genera and species of animals and their possible derivation one from another. ”

“ The skull, which must have consisted of hardened cartilage, exhibits pairs of nasal and auditory capsules, with a gill-apparatus below its hinder part, but no indications of ordinary jaws. The anterior opening of the brain-case is surrounded by a ring of hard cirri. A pair of “post-bronchial plates” projects backwards from the head. The vertebral axis shows a series of broad rings, with distinct neural arches, but no ribs. Towards the end of the body both neural and haemal arches are continued into forked radial cartilages, which support a median fin. ”

“ The small and mobile fore-limbs bear four complete fingers, with the thumb reduced to a bony spur. The pelvis and hind-limbs much resemble those of a running bird, such as those of an emu or the extinct moa; but the basal bones (metatarsals) of the three-toed foot remain separate throughout life, thus differing from those of the running birds, which are firmly fused together even in the young adult. ”

“ No external armour has been found. The reptile doubtless frequented marshes, feeding on the succulent vegetation, and often swimming in the water. Footprints prove that when on land it walked habitually on its hind-limbs.
The earliest remains of Iguanodon were found by Dr G. A. Mantell in the Wealden formation of Sussex, and a large part of the skeleton, lacking the head, was subsequently discovered in a block of ragstone in the Lower Greensand near Maidstone, Kent. ”

“ Among his writings on birds, his classical memoir on the Apteryx (1840–1846) , a long series of papers on the extinct Dinomithidae of New Zealand, other memoirs on Aptornis, Notornis, the dodo, and the great auk, may be specially mentioned. His monograph on Archaeopteryx (1863) , the long-tailed, toothed bird from the Bavarian lithographic stone, is also an epoch-making work. With regard to living mammals, the more striking of Owen's contributions relate to the monotremes, marsupials, and the anthropoid apes. ”

“ The neck, though long and slender, must have been rather stifl, because the bodies of the vertebrae are nearly flat-ended, while they bear short ribs: it could not have been bent in the swan-fashion represented in many restorations. The other vertebrae are similarly almost flat-ended and irmly united, but there is no sacrum. The ribs are single-headed, and in the middle of the trunk, between the supports of the paired limbs, they meet a dense plastron of abdominal ribs. ”