Early research Perhaps the first recorded discovery of meiolaniid remains stems from John Foulis, a doctor who lived on
Lord Howe Island halfway through the 19th century. Foulis mentioned that he discovered the bones of a turtle when describing the island's
geology, with later authors claiming that he sent a skull to an unspecified museum. While records of his writing exist, the later claim could not be verified and remains questionable. More scientists arrived on the island around 1869 on the ship Thetis following the murder of a resident. Among these scientist was
botanist and
poet Robert D. FitzGerald, who according to Clarke (1875) discovered fossil turtles. However this claim too could not be verified by later research, as could the claim that another collection was made by a Mr. Leggatt, despite the fact that these remains were supposedly sent to British paleontologist
Richard Owen. However, there are records of FitzGerald writing to Owen regarding later discoveries on Lord Howe Island and notes on turtle remains recorded by zoologist
Edward P. Ramsay. Another early record tells of meiolaniid remains being collected by geologist H. Wilkinson during yet another Thetis expedition to the island in 1882. The fossils were originally assigned to two distinct species,
M. platyceps and
M. minor, tho the latter has since then been sunk into
M. platyceps. Not long after Owen named
Meiolania, more and more material was published, including fossils much better preserved than the holotype, which have led to revisions regarding
Meiolanias classification. In 1887
Thomas Henry Huxley agreed with collectors in that
Meiolania was not a lizard but a type of turtle, which he named
Ceratochelys sthenurus. In addition to erecting
Ceratochelys, Huxley also referred the Queensland skull to this new genus. Meanwhile, upon receiving some additional fossil remains collected by Wilkinson (including a fully preserved skull), Owen came to believe that
Meiolania was related to both lizards and turtles and thus placed the animal in a group he called Ceratosauria (a name already occupied by a clade of
dinosaurs). When the fossils were examined by
George Albert Boulenger, he sided with Huxley, but placed the animal in
Pleurodira (side-necked turtles) rather than
Cryptodira. This was the first of a long series of differing opinions on the relationship between meiolaniids and modern turtles.
Arthur Smith Woodward on the other hand conducted further research on the continental remains and recognized that Owen's composite
Megalania further contained the fossils of a
marsupial in addition to the monitor lizard and turtle remains. Although he too agreed with Huxley's conclusion that the fossils were those of a turtle, both he and Boulenger pointed out that
Meiolania took precedence over
Ceratochelys and would thus be the correct name. He also concluded that the Queensland skull was clearly distinct from the material collected on Lord Howe Island and thus coined the name
Meiolania oweni for the continental material in 1888. they would eventually found to be distinct enough to retain the original name.
Additional finds on Lord Howe Island Another important contributor in the research history of
Meiolania was William Nichols, a local who served as a guide and collector for the
Australian Museum. According to Gaffney, Nichols' contribution practically doubled the amount of known
Meiolania specimens while also finding the first significant shell remains of this genus. After a brief period of little to no new discoveries, Anderson's work with the turtle remains eventually lead to the creation of another species in 1925, when he described the horns and limb bones of a meiolaniid turtle discovered on
Walpole Island south of
New Caledonia. Originally these bones were discovered by A. C. Mackay, an engineer working for the Australian
guano company. These remains were named
Meiolania mackayi by Anderson, although later reviews of the material argued that the species was not diagnostic enough to have warranted this distinction. Anderson furthermore was the first to map the distribution of
Meiolania across Lord Howe Island, even though the information was largely based on information given to him by
Allan Riverstone McCulloch, as Anderson had not visited the island himself. Parallel to Anderson publishing on the Etheridge collection, William Nichol's son-in-law Reginald V. Hines and a schoolteacher named Max Nicholls worked together to continue excavations, uncovering an additional 200 specimens, which they sold to the Australian Museum. Among the most important finds of theirs was a plastron and an articulated hindlimb, which dispelled Anderson's notion that
Meiolania was a sea turtle. By the 1940s the locality where both Nichols' and Hine's had recovered their specimens became less relevant, with other areas across the island gaining importance. Among the most important finds from these new localities was a carapace with articulated vertebrae and limb bones, but no skull. The discovery, made at Ned's Beach in 1959, was made rather coincidentally following a joking challenge made by
Elizabeth Carrington Pope to Ray Missen, a local
meteorologist. While photos were taken during recovery, a collapse of the excavation area nearly destroyed the shell. Eggs were found soon thereafter and during the excavation of a pool the most complete skeleton to date was found. Although uncovered with the use of a
jackhammer, the specimen could be pieced together and would eventually serve as the basis for later reconstructions of
Meiolania. The best known carapace of
Meiolania was discovered in 1977, and much like the remains of Pope and Missen, had been an coincidental find.
Alex Ritchie, who worked at the Australian Museum, failed to participate in the recovery of the "swimming pool" skeleton (as it is named by Gaffney). When he was informed of yet another find, he traveled to Lord Howe Island only to conclude that the remains were relatively insignificant. During his stay however he discovered the aforementioned shell and an associated skull on Old Settlement Beach.
Work by Gaffney and beyond The next important expedition to Lord Howe Island would be a joint project between the Australian Museum and the
American Museum of Natural History in 1980, with the latter returning two years prior for a second dig. These expeditions were the basis for a series of major publications by American researcher Eugene S. Gaffney, now considered to be an expert on meiolaniids. Gaffney's work consisted of complete and detailed descriptions of all known body parts of
Meiolania and their significance for the phylogenetic position of the group. Gaffney published three papers on the subject: the first, dealing with the history of Meiolania's discovery and its skull, the second on the vertebrae and tail club, and the final publication covering the shell and limbs while also reviewing Meiolaniidae as a whole. These papers were published in 1983, 1985, and 1996, respectively. In part due to Gaffney's work, meiolaniids had become much better understood by 1992. These advances in our understanding of
Meiolania lead Gaffney to re-examine the material of
M. oweni, finding that it was sufficiently distinct from all other species to warrant being placed in its own genus,
Ninjemys. While this removed one species from the genus, another was added that same year when
Dirk Megirian described
Meiolania brevicollis based on
Miocene remains from the Camfield Beds (
Northern Territory) of mainland Australia. Megirian had previously mentioned the Camfield material in a brief report in 1989, but was at that time unable to identify it at a species level. The most recently described species was published in 2010 by White and colleagues, based on limb material from
Vanuatu. However, due to the fact that this species is not known from skulls and tail elements, it is uncertain if it actually represents a species of
Meiolania and is thus typically referred to as ?
Meiolania damelipi both by the original team and subsequent authors. Although the taxonomy of this genus is still not fully clarified, especially with the abundance of isolated remains and species named from poor or possibly non-meiolaniid remains, papers from the 2010s and onward largely focussed on aspects of the animals paleobiology, aided by multiple papers reexamining the South American taxa. 2016 saw an analysis performed on an egg clutch assigned to
Meiolania, in 2017 the braincase of
Meiolania was studied illuminating some aspects of its lifestyle, and in 2019 Brown and Moll published an extensive review on the dispersal, ecology and lifestyle of the animal.
Etymology The meaning of the name
Meiolania has been subject to some debate, as Owen didn't offer a detailed etymology in the type description. This has led to two primary hypotheses, both agreeing that the name has the same origin as that of
Megalania and that the first element of the name derives from the
Ancient Greek "meion" meaning "lesser". The origin of the second part is however less conclusive. Gaffney argues that the suffix derives from the
Latin word "lanius", which means "butcher". In this way
Meiolania ("lesser butcher") would be complementary to
Megalania ("great butcher"). Following Juliana Sterli and colleagues meanwhile the name should translate to "lesser roamer" from the Ancient Greek "ήλaίνω" meaning "to roam about". This argument is supported by the work of Richard Owen himself. Although Owen never gave an etymology for
Meiolania, he did provide one for
Megalania. Contrary to Gaffney's writing, Owen translates
Megalania as "great roamer" rather than "great butcher". ==Species==