Saffron Walden Museum

 

This museum carries a single cast specimen  of a pterosaur as shown. (updated Feb 2001)

Saffron Walden Museum
Uttlesford District Council
Museum Street
Saffron Walden
Essex
CB10 1JL

01799 510333 Telephone and fax

museum@uttlesford.gov.uk
For enquiries about natural history collections contact - Sarah Kenyon, Natural Sciences Officer.

Museums

Name: Scaphognathus crassirostris.
Previous name: Pterodactylus crassirostris.
Identification numbers: SAFWM 1893.39.2 & catalogue number 25-14.

Description:
The cast of the specimen consists of a buff coloured tablet of dimensions 24.4cm x17.3 cm x1.5 cm depth. The bones are picked out in a brown colour against the background. Text is scratched into the back of the tablet and reads 'H. Von. Meyer's Rep, aus der Lithographischen Scheifer Tab. 5, fig 3.'

History
The cast was purchased by the Trustees of Saffron Walden Museum in October 1888. Its details are recorded in the following documents:

1. Museum Accession Register D 1892-1896. pages 97, 98, 330-333.  The specimen was entered into the register in September 1893 as object number 1893.39.2 and cross referenced to the Catalogue of Geological
Specimens with number 25-14. The register records details of the history of the specimen, its purchase and the inscription on the back of the cast.

2. Catalogue of the Geological Specimens in the Saffron Walden Museum 1896. page 5. Entry for number 25-14 reads: 'Pterodactylus crassirostris of Goldfuss. This is a cast of this celebrated fossil which was found in the Lithographic Limestone of the upper Oolite of Solnhofen in Bavaria. The original is now in the University Museum of Bonn in the Rhine.'

Updated August 2001