La chasse aux «sauriens» jurassiques dans le nord-est de la France aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles (Lorraine, Champagne-Ardenne et Alsace)

Hunting for Jurassic “saurians” in Northeastern France during the 18th and 19th centuries (Lorraine, Champagne-Ardenne and Alsace regions). This article traces the history of the first discoveries of reptiles in the Jurassic of northeastern France in the 18th and 19th centuries. For each of the concerned departments (Ardennes, Aube, Marne, Haute-Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Vosges), the personalities who contributed to these discoveries are presented chronologically. An inventory of specimens preserved in several French museum and university collections is proposed. It highlights a rich fossil reptile record which spans from the Hettangian to the Tithonian and which is represented by Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Thalattosuchia and Dinosauria. The formations having yielded the most abundant reptilian remains include the “Grès d'Hettange” (Hettangian), the “Calcaire à gryphées” (Hettangian to lower Sinemurian), the “Schistes cartons” and the “Marne de Flize” (lower Toarcian), the “Argiles de la Woëvre” (Callovian to lower Oxfordian), the “Marnes à exogyres” or “Marnes et calcaires à Nanogyra virgula” (upper Kimmeridgian) and the lower Tithonian limestones. This inventory also reveals a rich reptilian fossil record coming from the “Formation ferrifère” or “Minette” at the Early-Middle Jurassic transition (upper Toarcian-Aalenian), consequence of the intensive exploitation of iron ore in Lorraine during the 19th century. Scattered specimens from the Pliensbachian, Bajocian and Bathonian complete this main list. Unpublished manuscript and iconographic documents make it possible to clarify the historical context of the discoveries of important specimens, now lost or destroyed, such as the holotype of Mosellaesaurus rostrominor Monard, 1846, the holotype of Machimosaurus mosae Liénard in Sauvage & Liénard, 1879 (Thalattosuchia), and what could be one of the first ichthyosaurs found in France in the 18th century by Father Nicolas Le Bonnetier (1720-1804). These documents also made it possible to rediscover specimens which had been brought to the attention of Georges Cuvier but whose historical importance had long been forgotten.