#albert koch

In 1840, fossil showman Albert Koch bought up all the mastodon bones in one Missouri farmer’s field and built them into a fearsome, exaggerated specimen called a “Missourium”. Again in 1845, he bought up bones of the prehistoric whale Basilosaurus cetoides. Bones of the whale were often turned up by slaves working the fields in the south and were sometimes used to make furniture or the foundations of houses.  He built parts of six different whales into a massive sea serpent he called “Hydrargos sillimani”, or Hydrarchos, that was first exhibited in a New York salon.

In 1840, fossil showman Albert Koch bought up all the mastodon bones in one Missouri farmer’s field and built them into a fearsome, exaggerated specimen called a “Missourium”. Again in 1845, he bought up bones of the prehistoric whale Basilosaurus cetoides. Bones of the whale were often turned up by slaves working the fields in the south and were sometimes used to make furniture or the foundations of houses.  He built parts of six different whales into a massive sea serpent he called “Hydrargos sillimani”, or Hydrarchos, that was first exhibited in a New York salon.

For anyone not in the know, Basilosaurus is an early whale that lived around 40 million years ago.  However, when it was first discovered in the early 1800s, it was assumed to have been a large aquatic reptile, similar to the plesiosaurs or mosasaurs.  Therefore, it was dubbed “Basilosaurus” - “king lizard”.  Several years later, the mistake was realized, and the name “Zeuglodon” - “yoked tooth” - was proposed as a replacement.  However, the name “Basilosaurus” takes precedence, and cannot be changed.

Basilosaurus was not an extremely well-known animal when it was thought to have been a reptile, and no paleoartistic reconstructions of a reptilian Basilosaurus exist - at least not to my knowledge.

However, in 1845, an American fossil collector and showman huckster named Albert Koch used pieces of at least six Basilosaurus skeletons, as well as remains of other animals, to create a 100-foot-long “sea serpent” he dubbed Hydrarchos.  Koch and Hydrarchos toured the United States and Europe throughout the late 1840s and 1850s, astounding paying customers and irritating scientists the world over.

In 1840, fossil showman Albert Koch bought up all the mastodon bones in one Missouri farmer's field and built them into a fearsome, exaggerated specimen called a "Missourium". Again in 1845, he bought up bones of the prehistoric whale Basilosaurus cetoides. Bones of the whale were often turned up by slaves working the fields in the south and were sometimes used to make furniture or the foundations of houses.  He built parts of six different whales into a massive sea serpent he called "Hydrargos sillimani", or Hydrarchos, that was first exhibited in a New York salon.

Why January 31st is BRILLIANT

Super Size Me

The brilliance of January 31st has proved a bit elusive, so we're going to tell you about an exhibition that you could definitely have seen on this date if you were in London in 1842, and again in 1843. It was at the Egyptian Hall which was a rather unusual, but now sadly lost, building in Piccadilly. The main exhibition hall was very large and Dr Albert Koch, a fossil collector from St Louis, had something really big to exhibit. In 1840, he had discovered an almost complete skeleton of a mastodon in Missouri. The mastodon was a large mammal, related to the mammoth and the elephant that, up until 10,500 years ago, ranged across the northern hemisphere. His specimen, Mastodon americanum, would have stood somewhere between seven and ten feet high. Koch had reassembled the bones and then added a few extra bits, according to his own fancy.

The result was impressive. He took the bones from no less than three mastodons and added extra vertebrae and ribs. He even added some extra pieces made from wood. Koch had constructed an animal that was thirty-two feet long and fifteen feet high. As a final touch, he added the tusks, but he put them on upside down so they looked like horns curving over the animal's head rather than pointing down and outwards. He named his new animal 'Missourium'. Koch had already had some success hauling his monster all over the United States. Although in Philadelphia, a leading fossil expert, Dr Richard Harlan, had gently suggested that he might be able to do a bit better job of it when he'd done a bit more research.

At the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, Koch's exhibit was extremely popular. But it did draw the attention of England's foremost anatomist and palaeontologist, Sir Richard Owen. Owen was immediately suspicious. It seemed to have far too many ribs and its horns looked like upside down elephant tusks. Of course, he was completely right. In February, he read a paper to the Geographical Society, in which he said that Koch's Missourium was a mastodon that had been incorrectly mounted. In April, Koch had the gall to address the same society, insisting that it was definitely a new species. None of this affected public interest in his monster and the exhibition remained until the summer of 1843. Then Koch moved on to Ireland and Germany, where he met with equal success.

In 1844, Koch returned to the United States, but stopped over briefly in London where he sold his Missourium to the British Museum. He sold it for $2,000, with a further $1,000 to be paid every year for the rest of his life. Maybe they were hoping he wouldn't live quite so long as he did, because they paid $23,000 in the end. The British Museum knew perfectly well they were buying a fake. As soon as it arrived, they took it all apart, removed all the extra bits, reassembled it, put the tusks on the right way round and correctly labelled it Mastodon americanus. They had themselves a very fine specimen. It is still in the collection, at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington.

It wasn't very long before Koch was up to his old tricks. Later that year, he was on the road with a 114 foot long sea serpent he had named Hydrarchos. We mentioned the creature back in August when we wrote more about sea serpents. Koch's skeleton was soon identified for the fake it was, the fossil of an extinct whale with the bones of at least four other animals added to it. When he travelled to England with it, he met a similarly frosty reception. He eventually sold it in Germany.