#megalosaurus

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Happy 200th birthday to Megalosaurus bucklandii!!!

On the 20th of February, 1824, English palaeontologist William Buckland announced a discovery at a meeting of the Geological Society of London. The fossil jawbone, several vertebrae, pelvis and limb elements he presented that day belonged to a creature unlike anything seen before: a gigantic, land-living carnivore to which he gave the name Megalosaurus, the "Great Reptile".

This announcement, including an official published description of the fossil remains, was the first of three named species that in 1842 would be collected together by Richard Owen into the group Dinosauria. This makes Megalosaurus, revealed to the world on this day 200 years ago, the first Mesozoic dinosaur to be scientifically named!

Over the years Megalosaurus has been through some ups and downs, from being the most famous dinosaurian predator to being a wastebasket taxon that basically every scrappy theropod fossil was assigned to, to slightly fading into obscurity as more spectacular finds take the spotlight. But through it all the legacy it holds as the dinosaur that kicked off this whole wild 200 year train will always be unique.

So congrats to Megalosaurus on 200 years of being a truly Great Reptile!

#dinosaurs #megalosaurus #paleoart #paleontology #palaeoblr #paleoblr

[stavrosskundromichalis]

Happy anniversary Megalosaurus bucklandii! Two hundred years ago it became the first dinosaur to be named 🥳🦖🎉🍾

#dinosaur #illustration #paleoart #paleontology #paleoillustration #paleoblr #palaeoblr #art #palaeontology #megalosaurus #jurassic world #jurassic period #theropod #dinosauria #200 years

[fishsfailureson]

yeah

#art #my art #digital art #paleoart #paleontology #palaeoblr #dinosaurs #megalosaurus #iguanodon #coproliteposting #weed tw

[chameleocoonj]

birthday baby and his friends :)

#my art #paleostream #dinosaurs #elephant #megalosaurus #plotosaurus #prestosuchus #stegotetrabelodon #did some quick fixes on the elephant afterwards- elephants are wack

[nazrigar]

Women's History Month 2024 - Mary Buckland and Megalosaurus

It's International Women's Day! Featuring Mary Buckland, the OG Paleoartist, AKA the lady who drew the iconic Megalosaurus jaw described by her husband William in 1824!

Coincidentally, Megalosaurus' first scientific description turned 200 years old earlier this year!

#my art #women's history month #megalosaurus #paleoart #mary buckland #international women's day 2024 #dinosaurs #paleontology #nazrigart

[dinolegend-paleoart]

The first 3 dinosaurs

#dinosaurs #paleoart #hylaeosaurus #iguanodon #megalosaurus #dinosaur #paleo #恐竜

[ppaleoartistgallery]

Megalosaurus 200th Birthday

happy 200th birthday to Megalosaurus!!! here's to 200 years of having the first properly described dinosaur genus!

#paleoart #paleontology #digital art #artists on tumblr #digital artwork #palaeoart #digital illustration #id in alt text #sciart #dinosaur #Megalosaurus

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 2: Walking With Victorian Dinosaurs

[Previously: the Permian and the Triassic]

The next part of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur trail depicts the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Most of the featured animals here are actually marine reptiles, but a few dinosaur species do make an appearance towards the end of this section.

Although there are supposed to be three Jurassic ichthyosaur statues here, only the big Temnodontosaurus platyodon could really be seen at the time of my visit. The two smaller Ichthyosaurus communis and Leptonectes tenuirostris were almost entirely hidden by the dense plant growth on the island.

Ichthyosaurs when fully visible vs currently obscured Left side image by Nick Richards (CC BY SA 2.0)

Head, flipper, and tail details of the Temnodontosaurus. A second ichthyosaur is just barely visible in the background.

Ichthyosaurs were already known from some very complete and well-preserved fossils in the 1850s, so a lot of the anatomy here still holds up fairly well even 170 years later. They even have an attempt at a tail fin despite no impressions of such a structure having been discovered yet! Some details are still noticeably wrong compared to modern knowledge, though, such as the unusual amount of shrinkwrapping on the sclerotic rings of the eyes and the bones of the flippers.

———

Arranged around the ichthyosaur, three different Jurassic plesiosaurs are also represented – “Plesiosaurus” macrocephalus with the especially sinuous neck on the left, Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus in the middle, and Thalassiodracon hawkinsi on the right.

They're all depicted here as amphibious and rather seal-like, hauling out onto the shore in the same manner as the ichthyosaurs. While good efforts for the time, we now know these animals were actually fully aquatic, that they had a lot more soft tissue bulking out their bodies, and that their necks were much less flexible.

———

The recently-installed new pivot bridge is also visible here behind some of the marine reptiles.

———

Positioned to the left of the other marine reptiles, this partly-obscured pair of croc-like animals are teleosaurs (Teleosaurus cadomensis), a group of Jurassic semi-aquatic marine crocodylomorphs.

A better view of the two teleosaurs by MrsEllacott (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crystal Palace statues have the general proportions right, with long thin gharial-like snouts and fairly small limbs. But some things like the shape of the back of the head and the pattern of armored scutes are wrong, which is odd considering that those details were already well-known in the 1850s.

———

Finally we reach the first actual dinosaur, and one of the most iconic statues in the park: the Jurassic Megalosaurus!

Megalosaurus bucklandi was the very first non-avian dinosaur known to science, discovered in the 1820s almost twenty years before the term "dinosaur" was even coined.

At a time when only fragments of the full skeleton were known, and before any evidence of bipedalism had been found, the Crystal Palace rendition of Megalosaurus is a bulky quadrupedal reptile with a humped back and upright bear-like limbs. It's a surprisingly progressive interpretation for the period, giving the impression of an active mammal-like predator.

This statue suffered extensive damage to its snout in 2020, which was repaired a year later with a fiberglass "prosthesis".

———

Reaching the Cretaceous period now, we find Hylaeosaurus (and one of the upcoming Iguanodon peeking in from the side).

Hylaeosaurus armatus was the first known ankylosaur, although much like the other dinosaurs here its life appearance was very poorly understood in the early days of paleontology. Considering how weird ankylosaurs would later turn out to be, the Crystal Palace depiction is a pretty good guess, showing a large heavy iguana-like quadruped with hoof-like claws and armored spiky scaly skin.

It's positioned facing away from viewers, so its face isn't very visible – but due to the head needing to be replaced with a fiberglass replica some years ago, the original can now be seen (and touched!) up close near the start of the trail.

———

Two pterosaurs (or "pterodactyles" according to the park signs) were also supposed to be just beyond the Hylaeosaurus, but plant growth had completely blocked any view of them.

Although these two statues are supposed to represent a Cretaceous species now known as Cimoliopterus cuvieri, they were probably actually modeled based on the much better known Jurassic-aged Pterodactylus antiquus.

A second set of pterosaur sculptures once stood near the teleosaurs, also based on Pterodactylus but supposed to represent a Jurassic species now known as Dolicorhamphus bucklandii. These statues went missing in the 1930s, and were eventually replaced with new fiberglass replicas in the early 2000s… only to be destroyed by vandalism just a few years later.

(The surviving pair near the Hylaeosaurus are apparently in a bit of disrepair these days, too, with the right one currently missing most of its jaws.)

Image by Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The Crystal Palace pterosaurs weren't especially accurate even for the time, with heads much too small, swan-like necks, and bird-like wings that don't attach the membranes to the hindlimbs. Hair-like fuzz had been observed in pterosaur fossils in the 1830s, but these depictions are covered in large overlapping diamond-shaped scales due to Richard Owen's opinion that they should be scaly because they were reptiles.

But some details still hold up – the individual with folded wings is in a quadrupedal pose quite similar to modern interpretations, and the bird-like features give an overall impression of something more active and alert than the later barely-able-to-fly sluggish reptilian pterosaur depictions that would become common by the mid-20th century.

(Much like the statues themselves, the "modern" reconstruction above is based on Pterodactylus rather than Cimoliopterus)

———

The last actual dinosaurs on this dinosaur trail are the two Cretaceous Iguanodon sculptures. At the time of my visit they weren't easy to make out behind the overgrown trees, and only the back end of the standing individual was clearly visible.

Named only a year after Megalosaurus, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever discovered, and early reconstructions depicted it as a giant iguana-like lizard.

The Crystal Palace statues depict large bulky animals, one in an upright mammal-like stance and another reclining with one hand raised up. (This hand is usually resting on a cycad trunk, but that element appeared to be either missing or fallen over when I was there.)

Famously a New Year's dinner party was held in the body of the standing Iguanodon during its construction, although the accounts of how many people could actually fit inside it at once are probably slightly exaggerated.

A clearer view by Jim Linwood (CC BY 2.0)

Considering that the skull of Iguanodon wasn't actually known at the time of these sculpture's creation, the head shape with a beak at the front of the jaws is actually an excellent guess. The only major issue was the nose horn, which was an understandable mistake when something as strange as a giant thumb spike had never been seen in any known animal before.

(The fossils the Crystal Palace statues are based on are actually now classified as Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, but the "modern" reconstruction above depicts the chunkier Iguanodon bernissartensis.)

———

Image by Doyle of London (CC BY-SA 4.0)

I also wasn't able to spot the Cretaceous mosasaur on the other side of the island due to heavy foliage obscuring the view.

Depicting Mosasaurus hoffmannii, this model consists of only the front half of the animal lurking at the water's edge. It's unclear whether this partial reconstruction is due to uncertainty about the full appearance, or just a result of money and time running out during its creation.

The head is boxier than modern depictions, and the scales are too large, but the monitor-lizard like features and paddle-shaped flippers are still pretty close to our current understanding of these marine reptiles. It even apparently has the correct palatal teeth!

Next time: the final Cenozoic section!

#field trip! #crystal palace dinosaurs #retrosaurs #i love them your honor #crystal palace park #crystal palace #ichthyosaur #plesiosaur #teleosaurus #crocodylomorpha #marine reptile #megalosaurus #theropod #hylaeosaurus #ankylosaur #iguanodon #ornithopoda #ornithischia #dinosaur #pterodactyle #pterodactylus #pterosaur #mosasaurus #mosasaur #paleontology #vintage paleoart #art

[palaeoplushies]

A small herd of Crystal Palace Megalosaurus have stomped their way into my shop. These took a little longer to finish than I anticipated but they're done now!!

You can find them on my website www.palaeoplushies.com

#Megalosaurus #crystal palace #crystal palace dinosaurs #palaeoplushies #dinosaur #plushie #for sale

[racecarart]

Happy 200th anniversary to the discovery of Megalosaurus!

#megalosaurus #dinosaur #paleoart #paleontology

[johann1220]

The Great Lizard

(All assets are done in Blender & made by me.)

#megalosaurus #dinosaur #extinct #prehistoric #3dart #blender #dinosaurs #paleontology #palaeoart #palaeontology #paleoart

[yagizcomics]

IT'S BEEN A WHOLE 200 YEARS SINCE THE DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST DINOSAUR MEGALOSAURUS

#paleoblr #paleoart #drawing #illustration #dinosaur #tumblr draw #megalosaurus #paleontology

[thecoffeeisblack]

I'm a little late, but here's a little something to celebrate Megalosaurus's 200th birthday!

#illustration #paleoart #art #paleontology #paleo #sciart #artistsontumblr #digitalart #science #digitalillustration #Megalosaurus #200 #dinosaur #prehistoric #human artist #create don't scrape

[makairodonx]

Celebrating 200 years of Megalosaurus bucklandii, a 6-meter-long theropod which lived 166 million years ago in the Middle Jurassic what is now southern England, and on February 20, 1824, was also the first genus of non-avian dinosaur ever to have been given a valid name.

#paleoart #dinosaur #dinosaurs #paleontology #palaeoart #paleoblr #paleoartists on tumblr #palaeontology #megalosaurus #megalosauridae #dinosauria #theropod dinosaur #dinosaur artwork #dinosaur art #dinosaurios #dinosaurio #dinosaur illustration #jurassic period

[nazrigar]

It's the 200th anniversary of Megalosaurus' description.

Happy Birthday to the ORIGINAL Dinosaur!

#megalosaurus #my art #nazrigart #paleoart #dinosaurs #paleontology #science history

[impulseimpact]

funnyraptor heard it was meggys birbday and something something imitation as a form of flattery

#my art #oc #funnyraptor #megalosaurus #paleo art #paleoart #blender #3d art #dinosaur