多年来,大多数学者把现代古生物学的诞生归于理查德·欧文(Richwh Owen)爵士。欧文是英国自然史博物馆的创建人,也是维多利亚女王和她的两位首相的朋友。 然而,德博拉·卡德伯里(DeborahCadbury)在最近出版的新书《恐龙寻找者》(The Dinosaur Hunters)中声称,欧文的著作多半依据英国东苏塞克斯郡一个名叫吉迪恩·曼特尔(Gideon Mntell)的医生的研究成果。虽然欧文想出了这种史前巨型动物的名称,并弄清了它们如何在陆地上活动,但他的结论依据的是曼特尔的3项巨大化石发现中的2项。 For years, most scholars attributed the birth of modern paleontology to Sir Richwh Owen. Owen is the founder of the British Museum of Natural History and is also the friend of Queen Victoria and her two prime ministers. Deborah Cadbury, however, claims in a recent book, The Dinosaur Hunters, that most of Owen’s work is based on the name Gideon of East Sussex, England Dr. Gideon Mntell’s research findings. Although Owen came up with the names of these prehistoric giant animals and figured out how they did on land, his conclusions were based on two of Mantell’s three great fossil discoveries.