Megalosaurus
Around 1815 the fossil bones of some large animals were discovered in Stonesfield quarries near Oxford. The bones were acquired by William Buckland, one of which was a large jawbone with teeth in place.
Other bones included several vertebrae, pelvic and shoulder bone fragments, and some limb bones. All the bones were huge. Buckland estimated that the creature must have been over 40 feet in length.
Buckland named the creature Megalosaurus ('Great Lizard'). He was unaware that other bones belonging to the same type of creature had been found before, most notable Robert Plot's 'Scrotum humanum' in 1676 which was later to prove to be part of a Megalosaurus femur, extracted from a quarry in Cornwall.
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| Megalosaurus claw | Megalosaurus footprint |
William Buckland: "Notice on the Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield" in Transactions of the Geological Society of London, series 2, vol 1 (1824), pp. 390-396.
