Parts of Charles Darwin’s own Fossil Collection Turn Up in Cabinet
Surprise find reveals whole collection of fossils that may have helped Darwin in developing his theory of evolution by natural selection.
This is an amazing story about a surprise finding – fossils that belonged to Charles Darwin. These may add new details in the story of Charles Darwin's great intellectual leap. Darwin based his evolutionary ideas on multiple lines of evidence – organisms in his native England and abroad, domestic and wild, living and fossilized:
Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a "gloomy corner" of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey.
Using a flashlight to peer into the drawers and hold up a slide, Falcon-Lang saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq."
"It took me a while just to convince myself that it was Darwin's signature on the slide," the paleontologist said, adding he soon realized it was a "quite important and overlooked" specimen.
He described the feeling of seeing that famous signature as "a heart in your mouth situation," saying he wondering "Goodness, what have I discovered!"
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