Charles Darwin, Paleontologist

Along with collecting modern plants and animals during his sojourn on the Beagle, Charles Darwin collected fossils.

He is credited with being the first scientist to examine fossils in the Falkland Islands, where he collected fossil brachiopods, but he is better remembered for the large bones of extinct fossil mammals that he found on his excursions in Patagonia, mastodon, giant ground sloths called Megatheria, and the armadillo-like Glyptodon, and fossil horses, which previously were unknown in the Americas.

Darwin sent his fossils back to England, where the leading British anatomist of the day, Richard Owen, described and published Darwin’s finds. Darwin’s paleontological training continued after he returned from the Beagle voyage, and he became an expert on fossil barnacles.

Image: reconstructions by Richard Owen based on fossils collected by Charles Darwin.