The John Quekett sections and the earliest pterosaur histological studies

Abstract

AbstractIn 1855, John Quekett, assistant curator to Richard Owen of the Hunterian Museum in London, published a catalogue of the museum’s thin-section specimens. Among them were 15 sections of pterosaur bone. These sections were cut from eight bones found in the Lower Chalk of Kent, the Wealden of Sussex and the Stonesfield Slate of Oxfordshire, and are believed to be the first pterosaur bone thin sections to have been produced and described. Six of these thin sections survived the bombing of London during the Second World War, although the bones from which they were cut were destroyed. The sections were re-examined in early 2001 and photographed in plane and crossed polarized light for the first time. The histology of one thin section is inconsistent with a pterosaurian origin. This case highlights the value of bone palaeohistology as an aid in confirming the identity of incomplete remains.