Levka#ThomasJefferson #paleontology
"Thomas Jefferson was many things: a revolutionary, an enslaver, a horticulturist, and—by some accounts—the 'father of American vertebrate paleontology.' Science historian Keith Thomson looks at Jefferson’s study of fossils—which he suggested were not fossils at all—in an effort to win respect for the natural life of North America.
Thomson writes that, for nearly a decade after publishing Notes, Jefferson abandoned scientific work for politics. But in 1796, after he had temporarily retired from government employment, he received a letter from a friend regarding the discovery, in what’s now West Virginia, of 'the Bones of a Tremendous animal.' The letter also suggested that the creature 'probably was of the Lion kind.'
The fossilized bones of the 'great-claw,' shipped to Jefferson’s residence, were parts of a giant, clawed limb. Following his friend’s lead, Jefferson worked on the assumption that this had been some sort of lion—but one with claws at least three times the length of an African lion’s.
However, after seeing a drawing of a South American giant sloth fossil—a genus known as Megatherium—he reluctantly acknowledged that this was a better fit. In the paper he published on the fossil, Thomson writes, 'Jefferson still seemed to cling to the idea that things would turn around and it would be revealed as a giant lion after all.'"
