Samuel Stutchbury
| Samuel Stutchbury | |
|---|---|
| Born |
15 January 1798 London |
| Died | 12 February 1859 (aged 61) Bristol |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Geology, Natural history |
| Known for | Discovery of Thecodontosaurus |
Samuel Stutchbury (15 January 1798 – 12 February 1859) was an English naturalist and geologist. He was co-discoverer of Thecodontosaurus, which in 1836 was the fourth dinosaur genus to be named. He also played a part in Gideon Mantell's naming of Iguanodon. As a geological surveyor he mapped a large area of eastern Australia.
Stutchbury was born on 15 January 1798 in London, the son of a gauging instrument maker. In 1820 he became assistant conservator at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1821 was made an associate of the Linnean Society of London. In 1824 he had a part in Gideon Mantell's identification of Iguanodon, which in 1825 would become the second dinosaur to be formally named. It was Stutchbury who realised that Mantell's fossils of teeth resembled the teeth of the iguana specimen which Stutchbury had just prepared at the Hunterian Museum.
In 1825 he took part as a zoologist in an expedition of the Pacific Pearl Fishery Company to New South Wales and the Tuamotus.
From 1831–50 Stutchbury was curator of the museum at the Bristol Institution. Fossil finds from excavations that he carried out at Bristol with local naturalist Henry Riley led to their announcement of Thecodontosaurus in 1836. This was only the fourth dinosaur genus to be named, although it was originally omitted from the group Dinosauria when the group was named by Richard Owen in 1842.
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