| Administrative History | The 'Missouri Leviathan' or 'Missourium' was excavated by Koch in 1840. Koch constructed the bones to create the skeleton of a creature which was 4.5m high and 9m long which he exhibited first in his own museum in St Louis. After he sold his Museum in 1841 he took the Missourium on tour to New Orleans, Louisville and Philadelphia. He then brought the skeleton to Europe and it was whilst it was on show in the Egyptian Museum in London that the anatomist Richard Owen spotted it. It was purchased by the British Museum in November 1843 and Owen removed the extraneous bones Koch had added to make it more impressive. It was reconstructed as an example of the American Mastodon. |
| Publication Note | See: Owen, Richard, "Report on the Missourium now exhibiting at the Egyptian Hall, with an inquiry into the claims of the Tetracaulodon to generic distinction", Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, vol 3( 1842), pp689–695. |