Mike Taylor ([log in to unmask]) writes: I am looking at early (pre-1850) Lower Jurassic marine reptile finds in the UK and especially for type and figured specimens which may have gone astray or be unrecognised today, whether as original specimens or as casts.
The Bristol Museum's precursor, the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts (often called the Bristol Philosophical Institution), sent casts of their specimens to a number of institutions and buyers. Two such casts are shown in the photos attached (by kind permission of the Oxford University Museum); sadly the original specimens were destroyed in the Bristol Museum in a 1940 air raid.
So far we know of other copies of one or both casts at ANSP Philadelphia, NHM London, and Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, as well as at Oxford, and I am keen to know of any others in collections, please (and indeed of any plaster casts of other fossil reptiles ascribed to the Bristol Institution).
The names and localities used in labels for those two specimens/casts vary but include Ichthyosaurus communis, I. latimanus, I. conybeari and I. intermedius; the correct locality is believed to be Banwell in Somerset/Somersetshire but Saltford near Bath and Lyme Regis have also been used!
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