Henry Riley (1797–1848)[1] was a British surgeon, anatomist, naturalist, geologist and paleontologist.

Riley was involved in a body snatching scandal in the late 1820s - he was fined £6 (inflated to £657.29 in 2019) in 1828.

[1] In 1833, Riley described the extinct ray-like chimaeriform Squaloraja based on a specimen found by Mary Anning four years earlier.

[6] Inthe autumn of 1834, Riley[1] and the curator of the Bristol Institution, Samuel Stutchbury, began to excavate "saurian remains" at the quarry of Durdham Down, at Clifton, presently a part of Bristol, which is part of the Magnesian Conglomerate.

In 1834 and 1835, they briefly reported on the finds,[7] and they provided their initial description in 1836, naming the new genera Palaeosaurus and Thecodontosaurus.