An anatomist and palaeontologist, Owen worked on fossil mammals and reptiles, including those brought back from South America by Darwin. He coined the name ‘dinosaur’, and reconstructed fossil reptiles such as Iguanodon. He believed that animals within a major group (e.g. vertebrates) were variations on a single theme, or ‘archetype’. His crowning achievement was the founding of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, in 1881.