Gerard Smets, also spelt as Gérard Smets, (1857 — 1922)Hellemond, A., Van Uytfanghe, S., Van Wolterbeek, T., & Stein, K. (2019). De Famenniaanflora van Moresnet: Een vergeten paleobotanische locatie binnen een bijzonder geologisch en historisch kader. ''Spirifer'', ''43''(3), 2-24. was a Belgian

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

, and

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin , in turn from Greek , , from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is also the title used for lower-ranki ...

known for the misidentification of the

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

'' Aachenosaurus'' (now known as '' Nicolia moresneti''), named after the locale of

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

Biography

Gerard Smets was born in 1857 and he worked at the Collège Saint-Joseph in

Hasselt Hasselt (, , ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg in the Flemish Region of Belgium. As of 1 August 2023, Hasselt had a total population of 80,846. The old ...

during the late 19th century. He began to excavate the Aachen Formation at

Moresnet Neutral Moresnet (, , , ) was a small Belgium, Belgian–Prussian condominium (international law), condominium in western Europe that existed from 1816 to 1921 and was administered jointly by the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (Belgium after ...

during the 1880s, and during the time he named '' Aachenosaurus'' in 1888, a rumor abounded that he completely withdrew from science out of pure embarrassment after 1888, but not until he had published ''Les classifications des chéloniens'' in 1889; this rumour was later proven false. Smets published ''La Culture Du Pin Sylvestre En Campine'' in 1892, and the last paper he published was ''La nutrition des plantes cultivées'' in 1904. Smets died in 1922 at the village of

, Belgium.

History of the ''Aachenosaurus''

''Aachenosaurus'' was discovered by Smets in 1887 and it consisted of several fragments of fossilised wood found in the Aachen Formation; he named the species ''

Aachenosaurus multidens ''Nicolia'' is a genus of Fossil wood, fossilized wood from the Late Cretaceous to Pleistocene of Belgium, Ethiopia, Egypt, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Tunisia. The type species is ''N. aegyptiaca''.H. N. Andrews. (1970). Index of Generic Nam ...

'', now known as '' Nicolia moresneti'',H. N. Andrews. (1970). Index of Generic Names of Fossil Plants, 1820-1965. ''Geological Survey Bulletin'' 1-354 on 31 October 1888. Based on these fragments he determined that the specimen was a

hadrosaur Hadrosaurids (), also hadrosaurs or duck-billed dinosaurs, are members of the ornithischian family Hadrosauridae. This group is known as the duck-billed dinosaurs for the flat duck-bill appearance of the bones in their snouts. The ornithopod fami ...

reaching an estimated 4-5 meters in length which might have had dermal spines. He defended this conclusion, citing that the fossils had been examined visually with the naked eye, magnifying lenses and with the microscope. However, his error was soon demonstrated by

Louis Dollo Louis Antoine Marie Joseph Dollo (; 7 December 1857 – 19 April 1931) was a Belgian palaeontologist, known for his work on dinosaurs. He also posited that evolution is not reversible, known as Dollo's law. Together with the Austrian Othenio Ab ...

. Smets at first tried to defend his original identification but was again proven wrong by a neutral commission.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smets, Gerard Belgian paleontologists Abbés 19th-century Belgian biologists 1857 births 1922 deaths