Marine Reptiles (Hall)

Dates

• Existence: 1902 - 1952

Summary

Historic, permanent exhibition. Opened approximately 1902 and closed approximately 1950-1952. Located on Floor 4, Section EC, or East Corridor no. 405, from 1902 to approximately 1924-1925, and Floor 4, Section 12a from approximately 1939 to approximately 1949-1952 (1, 1903; 2, 1911, p. 74; GG 1914 p. 97; 2, 1939 p. 42).

The Marine Reptiles (Hall) exhibited fossil marine reptiles such a Mosasaurs, Ichthyosaurs, and Plesiosaurs and was located in different corridor sections of the fourth floor. Of the hall, William Diller Matthew wrote in the Guide Leaflet to the Exhibition Halls of Vertebrate Palaeontology in 1903 (1, 1903, p. 10, 12):

"On stepping from the elevator the visitor sees before him a case filled with skulls and skeletons of the marine reptiles and fishes which inhabited the great inland sea that once spread over the center of the North American continent, from Canada to Mexico, The reptiles were of kinds now long extinct, Plesiosaurs with long snaky neck, short bulky body with long flippers and stubby tail, and Mosasaurs with short neck and longer tail. Some of the fishes were ancestors, collateral or direct, of certain modern fishes, others belonged to groups now extinct. These animals lived and died, their carcasses sank to the bottom of the sea, and were buried in whatever sediment was being deposited there - soft white ooze in the open sea, dark gray or black mud nearer the shores. In the course of ages this ooze or mud settled gradually and consolidated into chalk or shale. Afterwards as the continent rose above the waters and assumed more nearly its present dimensions, the rivers flowing over the broad plains excavated broad shallow valleys in the chalk and shale. In the dry climate of the present day the sides of these valleys often are bare rock, carved by wind and the infrequent stormbursts of rain into the fantastic maze of cliffs and winding canons known as 'bad-lands.' Here and there, projecting from an outstanding ledge or trailing in fragments down some crumbling slope, a fossil bone may be seen by the trained eye of the collector as he searches along the rock exposures; and quarrying in around the bone he is sometimes rewarded by a skull, sometimes by a string of vertebrae, occasionally by a whole skeleton, buried in the rock except for such parts of it as have been weathered out and washed away."

The exhibit ceases to be mentioned in the General Guides beginning in 1928. The 1931 General Guide states that the Hall of Mongolian Vertebrate will later be focused on marine reptiles, but they are instead installed in another fourth floor corridor in 1939 (2, 1931 p. 111; 1939 p. 42). The exhibit is not mentioned in the Museum General Guides after 1949.

REFERENCES

1) Matthew, W.D., The Collection of Fossil Vertebrates: A Guide Leaflet to the Exhibition Halls of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the American Museum of Natural History. New York: American Musem of Natural History, 1903.

2) General Guide to the Exhibition Halls of the American Museum of Natural History. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1911-1939.

Information for the hall appears in the following Museum publications:

American Museum of Natural History General Guides for years: 1904 (Table of Contents, 13, 19); 1911 (page 73, 81); 1913 (page 87, 94); 1914 (page 96, 97, 103); 1916 (page 103, 104, 112); 1918 (Table of Contents, 96, 97, 105); 1919 (Table of Contents, 99, 100, 107); 1921 (Table of Contents, 99, 100, 107); 1922 (Table of Contents, 99, 100, 107); 1923 (Table of Contents, 99, 100, 107); 1926 (page 3, 39); 1927 (page 3, 39); 1928 (page 97); 1930 (page 97); 1931 (page 111); 1932 (page 111); 1933 (page 113); 1939 (page 19); 1943 (page 19, 42); 1945 (page 19, 42); 1947 (page 19, 42); 1949 (page 19, 42)

Alternate Name Forms

Outline:

• Uncontrolled name form (dates of use by year)
• Marine Reptile Corridor (1904)
• Reptile Corridor (1904)
• Fossil Marine Reptiles (1904)
• Hall of Fossil Reptiles (1905, 1943)
• Fossil Reptiles (Dinosaurs) (1911, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1919, 1921, 1922, 1923)
• Fossil Fishlike Lizards (1914, 1916, 1918)
• Fossil Reptiles, Amphibians and Fishes (1916, 1918, 1919, 1921, 1922, 1923)
• Hall of Marine Reptiles (1925, 1931, 1932, 1933)
• Fossil Reptiles (1926, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1939, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1949)
• Age of Marine Reptiles (1930)
• Corridor of Marine Reptiles (1943, 1945, 1947, 1949)
• Marine Reptiles (1945, 1947, 1949)

Places

• New York (N.Y.)
  • Note: Floor 4, Section 12a. From 1905, located in AMNH: Floor 4, Section 5, Southeast Pavilion. 1904, located in AMNH: Floor 4, East Corridor.

Topics

• AMNH Permanent Exhibitions