Who was the first person to discover dinosaures and how did they get their names?

Answer 1

I believe Gideon Mantell was the first person to really classify a dinosaur (before that, bones had been found but everyone thought they were dragon or giant bones). He would probably have been named by his parents. The dinosaurs, in the meantime, are given names extracted from greek and latin, and by convention each dinosaur is named by the person who discovered it.

If you look at dinosaur names long enough (I have), you do start to find some patterns, even if you don't already know greek. For example, 'triceratops' means 'three horned face', while 'protoceratops' means 'first horned face'. Breaking it down a little, you can find things like 'don' means 'tooth' and 'saur' means 'lizard', for example.

Answer 2

That's a good question. If you look at the history of dinosaur discoveries, you'll see that the Europeans found dinosaur bones before the 1800s. For example, a dinosaur thigh bone found in England in the 1600s was illustrated by Robert plot in 1677, and in the 1770s the remains of Streptospondylus were found in France.

The name dinosaur was coined by Richard Owen in 1841 to include Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, and Hylaeosaurus.

Answer 3

Gideon Mantell was the first person to discover a dinosaur recognize it as something previously unknown. The name he gave was "Dinosaur", which translates from ancient greek as "terrible lizard". I think this was in the early 1800's; the location was in Cuckfield, West Sussex, England (check out the memorial in Cuckfield recreation ground in you live nearby!). Before this discovery, dinosaur fossils were known about, but were commonly attributed to human or animal remains associated with Noah's flood. The species Mantell discovered was an Iguanadon, which was a moderately large vegetarian species with large claws, that lived during the Early Cretaceous period. I think its remains are now on display in the Natural History Museum in London.

Answer 4

The first use of the term ‘dinosauria’ (from the Greek δεινός deinos ‘terrible’ + σαύρος sauros ‘lizard’) [was] by famous British anatomist and palaeontologist, Sir Richard Owen. He used the term at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Plymouth, in 1841.

He did not, of course, discover dinosaurs. They were previously well known throughout the world by names such as dragon.

For example, the Romans even made mosaics of creatures that we would now call dinosaurs.

Check this link for many depictions of dinosaurs by people that lived with them!
http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm

Answer 5

Gideon mantel's wife, supposedly found the first iguanadon tooth...

he then named it "iguana's tooth" in Latin, because of the similarity to modern iguana's

then further finds developed the study of these new fossil animals
ie megalosaurus

sir Richard Owen then published his work on the "terrible lizards"
in Latin is "Dino-saurs"

the name stuck and we still use it...

dinosaur names are often given due to particular physical characteristics... and some times they are named after people or the place they where found

so if you can understand some of the Latin words the name can tell you a little about the animal

ie tyrannosaurus Rex means : tyrant lizard king (king of tyrant lizards)

tri-cera-tops : three-horn-face
proto-cera-tops : first-horn-face

veloci-raptor : fast thief
etc...
hope that helps
JSJ

Answer 6

actually, the fist person to find EVIDENCE of a dinosaur, was a 12 year old girl! However, she did not actually discover the "terrible lizard" (aka dinosaur). ;)

Answer 7

The very first person was actually a caveman up in scotland. Wee Jock mc rockly.
Upon seeing one of these enormous creatures he rushed back to his wife in the cave. Looking really scared, she asked whats wrong. He said he "Dinno saw us" Thats how the name came about. Simple really

Answer 8

Since the first dinosaur was recognized in the 19th century, mounted, fossilized dinosaur skeletons have become major attractions at museums around the world.

The term dinosaur is sometimes used informally to describe other prehistoric reptiles, such as the pelycosaur Dimetrodon, the winged pterosaurs and the aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, although technically none of these were dinosaurs.

Definition

Triceratops skeleton at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.The taxon Dinosauria was formally named by the English palaeontologist Richard Owen in 1842 as "a distinct tribe or suborder of Saurian reptiles".[1] The term is derived from the Greek words δεινός (deinos meaning "terrible", "fearsome" or "formidable") and σαύρα (saura meaning "lizard" or "reptile"). Owen chose it to express his awe at the size and majesty of the extinct animals, not out of fear or trepidation at their size and often-formidable arsenal of teeth and claws.

Dinosaurs were an extremely varied group of animals; according to a 2006 study, 527 dinosaur genera have been identified with certainty so far, and 1,844 genera are believed to have existed.[2][3] Some were herbivorous, others carnivorous. Some dinosaurs were bipeds, some were quadrupeds, and others, such as Ammosaurus and Iguanodon, could walk just as easily on two or four legs. Regardless of body type, nearly all known dinosaurs were well-adapted for a predominantly terrestrial, rather than aquatic or aerial, habitat.

Dinosaur synapomorphies

All dinosaurs so far discovered share certain modifications to the ancestral archosaurian skeleton. Although some later groups of dinosaurs featured further modified versions of these traits, they are considered typical across Dinosauria; the earliest dinosaurs had them and passed them on to all their descendants. Such common structures across a taxonomic group are called synapomorphies.

Dinosaur synapomorphies include: reduced fourth and fifth digits on the manus ('hand'), reduced number of digits on the pes (foot) to three main toes, a sacrum (the region of the vertebral column to which the pelvis attaches, composed of three or more fused vertebrae) and an open or perforate acetabulum (hip socket with a hole at its centre). Dinosaurs (including birds) are unique among all tetrapods in having this perforate acetabulum.

Other shared anatomical features

Scientists generally agree that a variety of other anatomical features were shared by most dinosaurs. These include forelimbs shorter and lighter than hind limbs, an unusual secondary palate that permitted dinosaurs to eat and breathe simultaneously, a relatively straight femur with medially-directed femoral head, two pairs of holes in the temporal region of the skull (i.e. a diapsid skull), rearward-pointing elbows in the front limbs and forward-pointing knees in the hind limbs.

The hip joint arrangement described above allowed an erect stance, in which hind limbs were situated directly beneath the body or 'underslung'. This stance is like that of most mammals today but unlike that of other reptiles, which have a less erect posture and limbs splayed out to either side. The vertical action of the limbs in dinosaurs allowed for more efficient and faster locomotion, compared to the clumsier and slower movement of other 'sprawled' reptiles. It also allowed many types of dinosaurs to become bipedal.


Stegosaurus skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.Taxonomic definition

Under phylogenetic taxonomy, dinosaurs are defined as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of Triceratops and modern birds. They are divided into Ornithischia (bird-hipped) and Saurischia (lizard-hipped), depending upon pelvic structure. Ornithischian dinosaurs had a four-pronged pelvic configuration, incorporating a caudally-directed (rear-pointing) pubis bone with (most commonly) a forward-pointing process. By contrast, the pelvic structure of saurischian dinosaurs was three-pronged, and featured a pubis bone directed cranially, or forwards, only. Ornithischia includes all taxa sharing a more recent common ancestor with Triceratops than with Saurischia, while Saurischia includes those taxa sharing a more recent common ancestor with birds than with Ornithischia. It has also been suggested that Dinosauria be defined as all the descendants of the most recent common ancestor of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon, because these were two of the three genera cited by Richard Owen when he recognized the Dinosauria.

There is an almost universal consensus among paleontologists that birds are the descendants of theropod dinosaurs. Using the strict cladistical definition that all descendants of a single common ancestor are related, modern birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are, therefore, not extinct. Modern birds are classified by most paleontologists as belonging to the subgroup Maniraptora, which are coelurosaurs, which are theropods, which are saurischians, which are dinosaurs.

However, referring to birds as 'avian dinosaurs' and to all other dinosaurs as 'non-avian dinosaurs' is cumbersome. Birds are still referred to as birds, at least in popular usage and among ornithologists. It is also technically correct to refer to birds as a distinct group under the older Linnaean classification system, which accepts paraphyletic taxa that exclude some descendants of a single common ancestor. Paleontologists mostly use cladistics, which classifies birds as dinosaurs, but some biologists of the older generation do not.

For clarity, this article will use 'dinosaur' as a synonym for 'non-avian dinosaur', and 'bird' as a synonym for 'avian dinosaur' (meaning any animal that evolved from the common ancestor of Archaeopteryx and modern birds). The term 'non-avian dinosaur' will be used for emphasis as needed. It should be noted that this article's definition of 'bird' differs from the definition common in everyday language; to most non-scientists, a 'bird' is simply a two-legged animal with wings and feathers