Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to be named. Despite this, not much is known about it, and no full specimens have been discovered.
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Megalosaurus was typical theropod dinosaur, standing on two legs, and having short arms and a long tail.
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It was between 7 and 9 m (23 and 30 ft.) in length and weighed around 1 tonne (1.1 short tons).
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Megalosaurus had a large head. Its powerfuljaws were filled with long teeth ideal for cutting through meat!
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Megalosaurus lived around 166 million years ago, during the mid-Jurassic period
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The first Megalosaurus fossil was discovered in 1676 in the Taynton Limestone Formation, in Oxfordshire, England.
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Consisting of just part of a bone, it caused confusion among the biologists of the time.
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Although they saw that it could not belong to any British animal, they didn’t realize that it came from a completely ‘new’ type of animal dinosaurs had yet to be discovered.
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One scientist of the day thought that the bone came from an elephant brought to England by the Romans. Another thought that it came from a giant human!
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Over the years more Megalosaurus bones were found in England.
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These included part of a jawbone, part of a spine, and part of a pelvis. In the early 1820’s paleontologist William Buckland realized that the bones belonged to giant reptiles.
![](https://worldnewsroom.info/eng/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1920px-Buckland_Megalosaurus_jaw.jpeg)
In 1822 James Parkinson announced the name ‘Megalosaurus’, which means ‘giant’, or ‘great’ ‘lizard’.
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It was the first dinosaur to be given an official name.
![](https://worldnewsroom.info/eng/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1920px-Megalosaurus_bucklandi.jpeg)
In 1827, Gideon Mantell wrote about Megalosaurus in a geologicalsurvey of south east England, naming the species Megalosaurus bucklandii, after William Buckland.
![](https://worldnewsroom.info/eng/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1920px-Megalosaurus_dentary.jpeg)
Together with Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus, Megalosaurus was one of the three examples Richard Owen gave in 1842 when he announced the discovery of a new type of animal the dinosaur.
![](https://worldnewsroom.info/eng/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1920px-Megalosaurus_fragments.jpeg)
It’s not just fossilized bones that are used by scientists to piece together what happened in the Mesozoic Era; fossilized Megalosaurus footprints have also been found!
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Ref: thoughtco, wikipedia, dinoanimals, sci-news, activewildPic: miambiente, wikipedia, pinterest, dinoanimals, prehistoric-wildlife
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