Progressionism in the 1850s: Lyell, Owen, Mantell and the Elgin fossil reptile Leptopleuron (Telerpeton)

Abstract

The advanced fossil reptile Leptopleuron (Telerpeton), collected in 1851 from supposedly Old Red Sandstone rocks near Elgin, northern Scotland, was regarded by Charles Lyell as good evidence for his anti-progressionist views. The specimen was sent to London to be described by Richard Owen, who published a brief account of it. Gideon Mantell then published a longer description of the same specimen, apparently at the request of its discoverer. The general opinion, then and now, has been that Owen acted badly, as he apparently did in other cases, because of his personal enmity towards both Lyell and Mantell. However, new evidence from previously unpublished archive materials shows that Lyell urged the ailing Mantell to produce a description at speed, in full knowledge that Owen was also doing so. Leptopleuron was almost the last piece of evidence that Lyell proposed as evidence against progressionism, and he was happy to accept its true Triassic age by 1860, by which time he was a progressionist and grudging evolutionist.

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