Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils.^[1] This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1854.

Expeditions, field work, and fossil discoveries

Institutions and organizations

Natural history museums

Scientific organizations

Scientific advances

Paleoanthropology

Paleobotany

Evolutionary biology

Exopaleontology

Extinction research

Micropaleontology

Invertebrate paleozoology

Trace fossils

Vertebrate paleozoology

Non-mammalian synapsids described in 1854
Name	Status	Authors	Age	Unit	Location	Notes	Images
Bathygnathus[2]	Valid	Joseph Leidy	Early Permian	Unnamed unit	Canada	A sphenacodontid pelycosaur.

Nothosaurs described in 1854
Name	Status	Authors	Age	Location	Notes
Deirosaurus	Junior synonym	Owen	Late Triassic	Italy	Junior synonym of Lariosaurus.

Prehistoric dinosaurs described in 1854
Name	Status	Authors		Age	Unit	Location	Notes	Images
Leptospondylus[3]	Junior synonym.	Sir Richard Owen		Early Jurassic (Hettangian-Sinemurian)	Upper Elliot Formation	South Africa	Junior subjective synonym of Massospondylus.
Massospondylus[3]	Valid	Sir Richard Owen		Early Jurassic (Hettangian-Sinemurian)	Upper Elliot Formation	Lesotho  South Africa  Zimbabwe	A massospondylid. a Small Plant-Eating Sauropodomorph.
Nuthetes[3]	Valid	Sir Richard Owen		Early Cretaceous (Berriasian)	Purbeck Group	England  France	A dromaeosaurid.
Pachyspondylus[3]	Junior synonym.	Sir Richard Owen		Early Jurassic (Hettangian-Sinemurian)	Upper Elliot Formation	South Africa	Junior subjective synonym of Massospondylus.

Research techniques

Fossil trade

Law and politics

Regulation of fossil collection, transport, or sale

Fossil-related crime

Official symbols

Protected areas

Ethics and practice

Hoaxes

Scandals

Unethical practice

People

Births

Awards and recognition

Deaths

Historiography and anthropology of paleontology

Pseudoscience

Popular culture

Amusement parks and attractions

Art

Comics

Film

Gaming

Literature

• The Fossil Spirit: A Boy's Dream of Geology by John Mill was published. The story features a fakir from Hindostan telling a group of boys about his past lives as prehistoric creatures across geologic time. One such life as was lived as an Iguanodon who was attacked by a Megalosaurus. Apart from this fight scene, paleontologist William A. S. Sarjeant has dismissed the book as a "singularly turgid and heavily didactic text."^[4]

Philately

Television