Megalosaurus
Great lizard · MEG-ah-lo-SORE-us
- Size
- About 9m long; 1 to 1.5 tonnes
- Lived
- About 166 million years ago
- Found in
- Oxfordshire, England
A large, heavily built hunter with a big head, strong arms and a long, stiff tail.
The megalosaurus that follows you
This page gathers Jurassic dinosaurs from Britain, Germany and beyond, including the first one ever named. Move your pointer and yours will follow you. Choose a different one at the bottom, and tap the notes to open them.
01 · FirstThe first dinosaur ever named
William Buckland described it in 1824, eighteen years before the word dinosaur existed.
02 · WrongFirst drawn on four legs
Early pictures showed it as a giant lizard walking on all fours. Statues like that still stand at Crystal Palace in London.
03 · GiantOnce thought to be a giant's bone
A piece of its thigh bone, found in the 1600s, was first explained as coming from a giant human.
04 · BookIn a famous novel
Charles Dickens mentions a Megalosaurus waddling up a London street at the start of Bleak House.
05 · BinA dustbin of a name
For over a century almost any big meat-eater found in Europe was called Megalosaurus.
06 · TracksFootprints in a quarry
Trackways in Oxfordshire, probably made by Megalosaurus, show it walking and then speeding up.
Meet them all
Six more from the Jurassic
Archaeopteryx
Ancient wing · AR-kee-OP-ter-ix
- Size
- About 50cm long; under 1kg
- Lived
- About 150 million years ago
- Found in
- Bavaria, Germany
A crow-sized animal with feathered wings, a long bony tail, teeth, and claws on its wings.
Compsognathus
Elegant jaw · komp-sog-NAY-thus
- Size
- About 1m long; 2.5 to 3.5kg
- Lived
- About 150 million years ago
- Found in
- Germany and France
A tiny, slender hunter the size of a turkey, with a long neck, long legs and a very long tail.
Scelidosaurus
Limb lizard · skel-EYE-doh-SORE-us
- Size
- About 4m long; 270kg
- Lived
- About 196 to 183 million years ago
- Found in
- Dorset, England
A low, four-legged plant-eater covered in rows of bony studs.
Dilophosaurus
Two-crested lizard · die-LOAF-oh-SORE-us
- Size
- About 7m long; 400kg
- Lived
- About 193 million years ago
- Found in
- Arizona, USA
A slender hunter with a pair of thin, rounded crests along the top of its head.
Kentrosaurus
Spike lizard · KEN-troh-SORE-us
- Size
- About 4.5m long; 1 tonne
- Lived
- About 152 million years ago
- Found in
- Tanzania
A small relative of Stegosaurus with plates on its neck and back, and long spikes on its hips, tail and shoulders.
Good to know
Six things about finding dinosaurs
The first named dinosaur
Megalosaurus was named in 1824, from bones found in Oxfordshire.
Terrible lizards
Dinosaur means terrible lizard. In 1842 only three kinds were known.
Mary Anning
Mary Anning of Lyme Regis found sea reptiles and a pterosaur on the Dorset coast from the age of twelve.
Fine stone, fine fossils
The limestone of Solnhofen in Germany is so fine that it kept the print of feathers.
The Jurassic Coast
The cliffs of Dorset and Devon are still giving up new fossils after every storm.
Anyone can find one
Many important fossils have been found by children and amateurs walking on a beach.
The Jurassic: 1 more place
Where next?
Photo gallery
Real fossils, skeletons and museum models of the animals on this page. Tap one to see it bigger.
Megalosaurus
Archaeopteryx
Compsognathus
Scelidosaurus
Dilophosaurus
Kentrosaurus
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under free licences. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews. Open a photo to see who took it.
Where dinosaurs were discovered
The very idea of a dinosaur began in England. The first three to be named were all found there, and the word itself was coined in 1842 by an Englishman, Richard Owen.
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