Edward Cope's reconstruction of Laelaps aquilunguis. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 11. Image source: Cope, Edward Drinker. "The fossil reptiles of New Jersey," in: American Naturalist, vol. 3 (1869), pp. 84-91, pl. 2.

Paper Dinosaurs 1824-1969

An Exhibition of Original Publications from the Collections of the Linda Hall Library

Knight Restores Thespesius (Trachodon), 1901

Frederick Lucas was one of the first American paleontologists to write books for the general public on prehistoric life, including dinosaurs, and his Animals of the Past (1901) and Life Before Man in North America (1902) helped shape the public view of dinosaurs in the early twentieth century. Lucas employed for his principal illustrator the singular Charles Knight, who in his short career had already established himself as the country's premier dinosaur artist.

The animal depicted here by Knight is called by Lucas Thespesius. However, it is the same dinosaur that Marsh had called Claosaurus, and others would shortly identify with Trachodon. Lucas used the name Thespesius because he was convinced that several bones found by Leidy in 1856 were identical to those in Marsh's Claosaurus, and therefore Leidy's name had priority. The nomenclature confusion would get worse. Lucas himself later changed his mind and reverted to Trachodon, but in 1943 that name gave way to Anatosaurus, and today, we consider Knight's subject to be a species of Edmontosaurus.

The work exhibited is a little known paper by Lucas that announced his first book. It contains two other paintings by Knight, of a Triceratops, and a Stegosaurus. For more on the nomenclature problems that arose with the first hadrosaurs, see What's In a Name?

Thespesius illustration by Knight. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 27. Image source: Lucas, Frederick A. "The Dinosaurs or terrible lizards," in: Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, for the year ending June 30, 1901, pl. 2. 

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Knight's Stegosaurus and Triceratops, 1901

The painting of Stegosaurus at the right was executed by Charles Knight in 1897, in his first engagement for Edward D. Cope. The painting of Triceratops (below left) appears to have been commissioned by the U. S. National Museum for their display at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. 

It is not clear whether either painting appeared in print before this, although it is very possible that they were published in one of the issues of the Century Magazine, a journal that this Library does not have.

Triceratops illustration by Knight. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 27, but it is not opened to either of these two plates. Image source: Lucas, Frederick A. "The Dinosaurs or terrible lizards," in: Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, for the year ending June 30, 1901, pl. 1. 

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Stegosaurus illustration by Knight. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 27, but it is not opened to either of these two plates. Image source: Lucas, Frederick A. "The Dinosaurs or terrible lizards," in: Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, for the year ending June 30, 1901, pl. 4.

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Cope's Diclonius, 1883

Diclonius mirabilis. This work is part of our History of Science Collection, but it was NOT included in the original exhibition. Image source: Cope, Edward Drinker. "The structure and appearance of a Laramie Dinosaurian," in: American Naturalist, vol. 17 (1883), pl. 18.

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In 1882, J. L. Wortman found the skeleton of an ornithopod dinosaur in South Dakota. It’s most striking feature was a duck-billed skull. Edward Cope described it in 1883. He recognized that the teeth were similar to that of Hadrosaurus mirabilis, described by Leidy in 1858 (see item 10). But Cope rejected Leidy’s generic name and replaced it with one of his own, calling it Diclonius mirabilis. Although the skeleton was nearly complete, he never reconstructed it, even on paper. It passed after his death to the American Museum in New York, and it was finally mounted in 1908 as part of a pair of duckbilled dinosaurs, which were now called Trachodon.

In 1897 Charles Knight reconstructed this specimen on paper, for a popular magazine. It was there called Hadrosaurus mirabilis.

For more on the nomenclature adventures of Diclonius, see What’s in a Name?