Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.9355
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Fossil sea turtle "Chelone pulchriceps"
Date
July 1840
Creator
Thomas Image (1772 - 1856, British) , Geologist
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (painting): 179mm
width (painting): 165mm
width (painting): 165mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Top view of the fossil head of a sea turtle named by Richard Owen FRS (1804-1892) in 1842. Inscribed below in ink: "Chelone pulchriceps. Owen. The above portion of a fossil Head from the Gault of Barnwell, near Cambridge - is now in the Cabinet of the Revd. Thos. Image. - & Represents the natural size. Drawn by T.I. July 1840. No.1 upper part."
The Rev. Thomas Image, Rector of Whepstead, was a fossil collector and Fellow of the Geological Society. His collection was sold to the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge.
This specimen was commented upon by Richard Owen in A history of British fossil reptiles ...(1849), section II chapter 1, p.162
"With the exception of a few more or less mutilated mandibles, no parts of the skull of a Chelonian reptile have been, hitherto, discovered in the chalk itself, either at Burham or elsewhere in England ; but I have had the opportunity, through the kindness of the Rev. Thomas Image, M.A., of Whepstead, of examining and comparing the fossil cranium of a small turtle from the green-sand which underlies the chalk. The specimen was discovered near Barnwell, in Cambridgeshire... “
From papers of the naturalist and geologist Caleb Burrell Rose (1790-1872).
The Rev. Thomas Image, Rector of Whepstead, was a fossil collector and Fellow of the Geological Society. His collection was sold to the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge.
This specimen was commented upon by Richard Owen in A history of British fossil reptiles ...(1849), section II chapter 1, p.162
"With the exception of a few more or less mutilated mandibles, no parts of the skull of a Chelonian reptile have been, hitherto, discovered in the chalk itself, either at Burham or elsewhere in England ; but I have had the opportunity, through the kindness of the Rev. Thomas Image, M.A., of Whepstead, of examining and comparing the fossil cranium of a small turtle from the green-sand which underlies the chalk. The specimen was discovered near Barnwell, in Cambridgeshire... “
From papers of the naturalist and geologist Caleb Burrell Rose (1790-1872).
Associated place