Saturday Matinee: I Know Dino

Summary

History Daily: Saturday Matinee – "I Know Dino" (August 8, 2026)

Episode Overview

This special Saturday Matinee episode of History Daily shares an installment from the podcast I Know Dino, hosted by Garrett and Sabrina. The theme is a celebration of 200 years since the naming of the first non-avian dinosaur, Megalosaurus. The episode dives into the fascinating history of both the animal and its scientific journey, illustrating how our understanding of dinosaurs has grown and changed since that landmark event.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dinosaurs as Ambassadors for Science (06:12–09:01)

• Sabrina highlights a Current Biology article by Jacob Vinther discussing dinosaurs as accessible gateways to science for all ages. Dinosaur fascination helps explain complex themes like physics, biology, and even inspires theater.
• Quote:

  “You can use dinosaurs to explain other concepts, for example… calculating the pressure a Brachiosaurus heart needs to pump blood to its brain.”
  (Sabrina, 07:13)

• Vinther's play "The Color of Dinosaurs," performed in the UK, blended science, art, and audience engagement, showcasing how dinosaurs fuel curiosity and learning for multiple generations.

2. The Wastebasket Taxon: Megalosaurus Mania (09:39–22:44)

• Megalosaurus became a "wastebasket taxon"—a category where many loosely related or misunderstood species were lumped together.

  • At least 50+ species were once classified as Megalosaurus, later sorted or reclassified as paleontology developed.
  • Only Megalosaurus bucklandi remains valid today (11:00–11:10).

• Reclassification examples:

  • Megalosaurus cuvieri: Based on a lost vertebra, later moved to Streptospondylus cuvieri.
  • Megalosaurus horridus: From teeth in Montana, may actually represent Gorgosaurus.
  • Megalosaurus schneidermai: Now recognized as the crocodylomorph Dakosaurus maximus.

• Discussion of the historic practice of grouping dinosaurs from wildly different eras and continents—Tyrannosaur teeth, for example, were once assigned to Megalosaurus despite a 100-million-year age gap.

• Quote:

  “When you’re the first one… people are still piecing together… there was so much we had no idea what we didn’t know.”
  (Sabrina, 21:48)

3. Megalosaurus Revisited: What We Know & How It’s Changed (23:57–39:16)

History of Discovery

• The first fossil (a femur) possibly belonged to Megalosaurus and was discovered in 1676—described as “Scrotum humanum,” though this name came from a labeling error, not the original discoverer (24:57–26:59).
• The official naming by William Buckland happened on February 20, 1824, based on a jawbone from Stonesfield, England.
  • Buckland appealed to other fossil holders to come forward with more bones to complete the picture, likened by hosts to a “lost pet poster.”
• Early reconstructions had little to go by, so estimates were greatly exaggerated:
  • Buckland guessed Megalosaurus was 60–70 ft long and amphibious, moving on all fours (33:28–34:11).
  • The famous Crystal Palace sculptures portrayed it as heavy, bear-like with a dragging tail and shoulder hump—now known to be incorrect.

Modern Understanding

• Today, Megalosaurus is described as a robust, bipedal carnivore, 20–30 feet long, with a heavy skull and short arms, but no good complete skeleton yet exists (36:29–37:14).
  • The only valid species: Megalosaurus bucklandi (“great lizard,” named for William Buckland).
• Clarification on the confusion between “Bucklandi” pronunciation and spelling (39:05–39:16).

Literary References

• Early pop culture: Megalosaurus appears in the first paragraph of Dickens’ Bleak House (1852–53), and in an even earlier magazine edited by Dickens (41:17–43:21).
• Quote:

  “It would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.”
  (Charles Dickens, cited at 40:08)

4. The Global Human Fascination with Dinosaur Fossils (43:38–47:32)

• People worldwide recognized and interpreted fossils before the word dinosaur existed.
• In Southern Africa, fossil finds date back at least 500 years before Buckland—like a Massospondylus finger bone found in an 1100–1700 AD cave, illustrating local knowledge and lore.
• Legends such as the dragon-like Kaluma Lumo in Lesotho and ancient tracks in Australia echo this fascination.
  • Many cultures believed these remains were from monsters or turned-to-stone beasts (45:25–46:42).
• Quote:

  “You don’t have to have the word dinosaur to appreciate the fossils and to find them interesting and to find some meaning in them…”
  (Garrett, 47:03)

5. Fun Fact & Closing

• Megalosaurus represents the beginning of dinosaur study as it's known today, but the human connection to these fossils stretches back millennia.
• The hosts tease next week’s episode and invite listeners to visit their website for sources.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I can't tell you how otherworldly it is to view with your own eyes famous paintings… but the real star that day was Sue, the T. Rex at The Field Museum… who doesn’t love dinosaurs?”
  (Museum Visitor, 00:38)
• “It’s like the lottery, except you always win.”
  (Museum Visitor, 03:23; joking about selling a car online)
• “You can connect dinosaurs with all sorts of topics… Dinosaurs are a gateway to science.”
  (Sabrina, 06:40)
• “Megalosaurus was being used as a wastebasket taxon for dinosaurs—basically everybody was just throwing species into Megalosaurus…”
  (Garrett, 17:05)
• “Set your calendars for 2041 when we do the 200th anniversary of the word ‘dinosaur’.”
  (Garrett, 32:19; lighthearted banter)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 06:12–09:01 – Dinosaurs as science ambassadors; the power of outreach and creative science education.
• 09:39–22:44 – “Megalosaur Mania”: the complex taxonomic history and confusion surrounding the genus.
• 23:57–35:54 – Megalosaurus Revisited: history of its discovery, naming, and how interpretations have changed.
• 39:16–43:32 – Literary appearances of Megalosaurus, with quotes from Dickens and contemporary writers.
• 43:38–47:32 – Fun fact about prehistoric and indigenous recognition of fossils; global fascination predating modern paleontology.

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains the warm, engaging, and nerd-friendly banter typical of the I Know Dino hosts. Garrett and Sabrina balance in-depth scientific discussion with humor and historical storytelling, making paleontology accessible and fun for all listeners.

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For Further Exploration

• For more on Megalosaurus and referenced studies, visit I Know Dino’s website.
• Seek out previous podcast episodes mentioned for in-depth looks at related genera (e.g., Streptospondylus, Torvosaurus, and Magnosaurus).
• For the play “The Color of Dinosaurs” and more dinosaur-inspired outreach, follow links in the show notes.

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This summary is designed to be comprehensive and engaging for both listeners and those new to dinosaur history or the podcast. Ads, intros, and outros were excluded per request.

Transcript

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[Museum Visitor]

I was vacationing in Chicago recently just in time to enjoy a city clogged with wildfire smoke. Thanks Canada, but you know, I'm sure we deserved it. Anyway, all that smoke chased us indoors and that meant museums. I can't tell you how otherworldly it is to view with your own eyes famous paintings like Georges Seurat's Asande en la Grande Jatte, Grant Wood's American Gothic, or Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. I don't know how many thousands of times I've seen these images, but in person they become alive, special, and communicate so much more. But we also made it to the Field Museum of Natural History just before a late lunch at the original Mr. Beef. Now that sandwich, ordered hot, sweet and juicy, was great, but the real star that day was sue, the T. Rex at The Field Museum. 10 tons of terror with a phalanx of teeth like knives offset by those adorable little arms. Amazing to see her in person. Because really, who doesn't love dinosaurs? And if you do, you're in for a treat on today's Saturday Matinee. We're sharing an episode from the podcast I Know Dino detailing the first dinosaur ever to be named Megalosaurus. It Even before the word dinosaur was in use, it turns out that even the prehistoric has a history I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow Inodino. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.

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[Sabrina]

Best thing that's ever happened to you financially.

[Garrett]

Go easy.

[Museum Visitor]

Sold my car on Carvana.

[Sabrina]

Amazing offer, really. I hit 200 on a scratcher.

[Museum Visitor]

Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once.

[Sabrina]

Okay, that's fair.

[Museum Visitor]

It's like the lottery, except you always win.

[Sabrina]

Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly. Inexplicably good offers worth bragging about.

[Museum Visitor]

Sell your car today on Carvana.

[Garrett]

Pick up fees may apply.

[Sabrina]

The snack wrap plus Caesar sauce equals

[Museum Visitor]

extra crispy chicken Caesary greatness. Sounds delicious.

[Garrett]

Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. Hello, and welcome to Aino Dino. I'm Garrett.

[Sabrina]

And I'm Sabrina.

[Garrett]

And Today, in our 482nd episode, we're celebrating 200 years of dinosaurs. Specifically 200 years of Megalosaurus.

[Sabrina]

Yes. The first non avian dinosaur to be named. So it's kind of like we're celebrating the history of dinosaurs. Mm.

[Garrett]

And Megalosaurus was named exactly 200 years and one day before this episode came out. Yesterday, we did a special live event about Megalosaurus. And it's yesterday from when this is released, but it hasn't happened yet from when we're recording this, so hopefully it went well.

[Sabrina]

I'm just gonna say it did.

[Garrett]

Okay. I like the optimism. We did art, we talked about Megalosaurus trivia, and.

[Sabrina]

And don't worry if you weren't able to make it to our free live event. We'll be covering a lot of the Megalosaurus history and fun facts in this episode.

[Garrett]

I guess it's good that this episode didn't come out before because we probably spoil all the trivia. Yeah, we did in the event. But before we get into all that, as always, we'd like to thank some of our patrons for helping to make our show possible and also making that live stream possible. And they also got first dibs at joining the limited number of seats. And this week, we have two new patrons to thank. They are Aleya And Draconosaur. Thank you both very much for joining.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

And then rounding out our shout outs, our random drawing winners that we haven't had for a couple weeks because we had so many new patrons are Paul M. Dragonfeathers, Kaylee Jurassic, Jim Chuck Maria, Seamus B. And Remy Rodriguez.

[Sabrina]

Thank you so much. Again, like, because of our patrons, that's why we're able to do this podcast. But also cool stuff like these live events that we're trying out.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Depending on the reaction, we might be doing more we'll have to see.

[Sabrina]

So before we get into Megalosaurus and the history of dinosaurs, I wanted to call out a cool paper that talks about how dinosaurs can be ambassadors for humanity. This was published in Current Biology by Jacob Vinther and people have known about dinosaurs for quite some time. We'll get into that more with our fun fact. Dinosaurs, of course we know are exciting and they're fun to talk about. And we always say that dinosaurs are a gateway to science and you can connect dinosaurs with all sorts of topics which we've been seeing lately with our Dinosaur Connection challenge. So this paper talks about how dinosaurs are attention grabbing and the author wrote, quote, upon reflection, I've realized that this fascination and appeal to dinosaurs could be used for good. End quote. Because like we were saying, you can use dinosaurs to explain other concepts, for example, physics, maybe There's a book where you talk about calculating the pressure a Berosaurus is, which is a long necked large dino. Its heart needs to pump to transport blood to its brain.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Or like that one study where they were trying to do it in person like with a giant model, and it broke open and dumped simulated blood all over the place.

[Sabrina]

Oh, I forgot about that one.

[Garrett]

Because it takes a lot of pressure, it turns out. Yeah.

[Sabrina]

So there's all kinds of ways to connect dinosaurs. And this author co created a play for children six and up and also for adults, exploring fossil melanin and dinosaur colors with songs and music which sounded really cool.

[Garrett]

So like a theater musical?

[Sabrina]

Yes. The play is called the Color of Dinosaurs. They debuted it last October at the Bristol Old Vic in Bristol in the UK. They performed 13 shows over 10 days. And in the show they included fossils and a reconstruction of a psittacosaurus named D. And the author said that they got lots of great feedback and kids and parents were excited and felt like they learned a lot. So they're going to be performing again this May in June at the Polka Theatre in London. And it's just a really great example of science outreach and how influential dinosaurs can be, especially after we keep saying 200 years. Even though people have known about dinosaurs for many, many more years than 200 years.

[Garrett]

Millennia more.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

They just weren't called dinosaurs and they didn't come to those conclusions the way that we're used to talking about them.

[Sabrina]

Yes. But I think this just is a good example of how popular dinosaurs are and how fun they can be to teach you so many types of concepts.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it's come a long way too, because when Megalosaurus was named, nobody was in the popular culture was particularly interested in it, because back then people were more interested in maybe human evolution, but even not so much that it was more just like, what are these interesting big mammals that were around were more exciting to people. And maybe plesiosaurs were pretty interesting. And ichthyosaurs, some of the marine things were a lot more popular. Dinosaur was not a household name for many years later. And now it's gotten to a point where you can make a play about it and every kid already knows what it means and is excited to get involved with it.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Though I will say Megalosaurus did get mentioned in some literary works shortly after being named. We'll get into that.

[Garrett]

Oh, cool.

[Sabrina]

But yes, on to our Megalosaur mania. And I want to thank Tyrant King, one of our patrons, for suggesting this topic seemed really fitting for our Megalosaurus episode. And we'll get into the details of Megalosaurus in our dinosaur of the day. But first, Megalosaurus, and we've talked about this a lot on the show, was a wastebasket taxon. So the name Megalosaurus was used to name a lot of other carnivorous dinosaurs over the years. In fact, over 50 species of Megalosaurus have been named.

[Garrett]

That's a ridiculous number.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Especially we were just talking about how usually when we talk about dinosaurs, there's just the one species. Mm.

[Garrett]

But this was the first dinosaur and they hadn't come up with that standard yet. And instead it was like, well, there's a lot of these large extinct animals that have big jaws and sharp teeth.

[Sabrina]

Mm. Surely they're a Megalosaurus.

[Garrett]

They must all be closely related because they all look pretty similar.

[Sabrina]

Yep. And they were related.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Just not even close to at the genus level.

[Sabrina]

So today there is only one valid species and that's Megalosaurus bucklandi.

[Garrett]

So just 2% of the originals.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

Still valid.

[Sabrina]

And I'm not going to get into all 50 plus species, but a few of them do include Megalosaurus cuvieri. Which was named by Richard Owen in 1842 based on a vertebra that has been lost. That also seems to be a theme with Megalosaurus here. Bones that have been lost.

[Garrett]

Oh, yeah. That definitely doesn't help their case as being a valid species.

[Sabrina]

Yes, but it was from the Jurassic. Later that bone became known as Streptospondylus cuvieri. And we talk about Streptospondylus. We talked about it back in episode 363. But the gist is that it's a medium sized theropod. It had powerful legs, sharp teeth and short arms. And the genus name means turned vertebra.

[Garrett]

Good.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Which brings me to Eustreptospondylus, which was named in 1964 by Walker. We talked about that one in episode 109 they found a mostly complete skeleton from the Jurassic in what is now England. And at first it was thought to be Megalosaurus bucklandi, but then Napsha reassigned it to Streptospondylus cuvieri. And then Alec Walker named it as Eustreptospondylus oxoniensis. And there's a whole bunch of reasons it went into Streptospondylus cuvieri, even though there wasn't much to compare it to, but it had to do with where it was found. Anyway, the genus name Eustreptospondylus means true

[Garrett]

Streptospondylus because the original Streptospondylus was not exciting enough. This is the real deal.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. Well, this one they found a mostly complete skeleton, so that is more exciting.

[Garrett]

It is.

[Sabrina]

Then there's Megalosaurus horridus, named by lady in 1856, which got changed to Dynodon horridus a year later. It's only known from some teeth that were found in Montana in the Judith River Formation.

[Garrett]

It's the same species name as Triceratops hortus.

[Sabrina]

Yep.

[Garrett]

Because you're allowed to reuse species names, just not the genus part.

[Sabrina]

Yep. It was exciting because these are the first Tyrannosaurid fossils described. It's possible the teeth belong to Gorgosaurus libratus, but it's hard to know from just the teeth.

[Garrett]

But if they can confirm it's definitely Gorgosaurus, someone can make a case for Gorgosaurus being referred to as Dinodon.

[Sabrina]

Mmm, good point.

[Garrett]

But they probably wouldn't because Gorgosaurus is such a well known and widely used name that they don't usually do that.

[Grainger Advertiser 2]

Good point.

[Sabrina]

Another one is Megalosaurus Cloacanus, named by Queenstedt in 1858 based on a tooth from the Late Triassic. This one's now considered to be a Gnomum dubium.

[Garrett]

That species name sounds an awful lot like cloaca.

[Sabrina]

Yes, that is how I chose to pronounce it. In 1869, Eugene Eudes de Longchamps named Megalosaurus insignis based on a tooth that was a third longer than Megalosaurus Bucklandi's tooth. This one is also now considered to be a Nomundubium, and it was also destroyed in 1944 by bombing. Lady named another Megalosaurus Megalosaurus valens in 1870, but that one became Pochilopleuron Valens, then it became Antrodemis Valens, then it became Allosaurus Valens, and then eventually Antrodemus Valens. Again, the genus name means chamber bodied. If we go by Androdemus, it's dubious. It lived in the Late Jurassic in the Morrison Formation.

[Garrett]

So it's not even considered to be its own genus anymore.

[Sabrina]

Yeah, it's dubious. It's based on one bone that Ferdinand Hayden got secondhand in 1869. And Hayden, if that name sounds familiar, was a geologist who did surveying expeditions of the Rocky Mountains. At first they thought it looked like a petrified horse hoof. Then lady studied it and found it to be a tail vertebra or tailbone. Charles Gilmore in 1920 said that Antrodemus and Allosaurus should be synonyms because the tail vertebra looked the same and Antrodemus is the older name. It was named in 1873 versus Allosaurus was named in 1878. So they said, well, that should make it Antredemis. But then more than 50 years later, James Madsen published about the Cleveland Lloyd Allosaurus specimens. There's over 12,000 bones and found that the name Allosaurus should be used instead because we only know the one tailbone of Antrodemus and there aren't really any unique features there. And we also don't know exactly where that bone was found. So Antrodemus is now a nomum dubium.

[Garrett]

That would be a big controversy if Allosaurus became Antrodemus.

[Sabrina]

Well, it did for a while.

[Garrett]

That's not as good of a name. Even though Allosaurus, in terms of its meaning isn't all that exciting. It just sounds good.

[Sabrina]

We're also used to it.

[Garrett]

That's true.

[Sabrina]

In 1871, Bunzel named Megalosaurus schneidermai. But many, many years later, 2012, it became a junior synonym of Dakosaurus Maximus, which was named in 1846. They found isolated teeth in Germany from the Late Jurassic. And Docosaurus is actually a crocodylomorph. Its name means bite lizard.

[Garrett]

Bite lizard. That's an interesting one. So not only was Megalosaurus being used as a wastebasket taxon for dinosaurs, basically everybody's just throwing species into Megalosaurus if they're dinosaurs, but also some crocodile relatives.

[Sabrina]

Mm. It had sharp teeth.

[Garrett]

It did. That's a good point. If all you have is teeth, maybe

[Sabrina]

they look similar in 1903. If you can't tell. I'm going in somewhat of a chronological order here. Dallo named Megalosaurus lanziensis, which then became Ornithomimus lanziensis and then Struthiomimus lanziensis. And it's all based on a claw that's now thought to be some sort of allosauroid claw. Very different.

[Garrett]

Some sort of allosauroid?

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

It seems like a lot of these

[Sabrina]

are probably dubious now, or got reclassified in 1925. There was Megalosaurus saharacus, which then became Carcharodontosaurus Saharacus. And we talked about Carcharodontosaurus way back in episode 24.

[Garrett]

It's a popular one.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. It was named based on two teeth found in Algeria, and it lived in the Cretaceous. These were the first theropod bones described from that area. The species name refers to the Sahara Desert. Hune also named Megalosaurus africanus based on the same teeth on accident in 1956. So Megalosaurus africanus became a junior synonym of Megalosaurus saharacus.

[Garrett]

I like Saharacus as a species name better.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. Rolls off the tongue.

[Garrett]

It's a lot more specific, too. Naming a species after an entire continent like Africanus is just like. That's not very specific that it's from Africa. I mean, Sahara is pretty big, too, but a little more specific.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Fortunately, those two original teeth have been lost. But in the 1960s, paleontologists found fossils in that area from Carcharodontosaurus. And Carcharodontosaurus was named by Ernst Stromer in 1931, and he named it based on fossils found in 1914 that included a partial skull, vertebrae, parts of the pelvis, and parts of the hand and legs. In 1926, Hugh named Megalosaurus lideckeris, which then became Magnosaurus. It lived in the Middle Jurassic in what is now England and was named based on a tooth. But there's more to it than that. So first Friedrich von Hume named Megalosaurus nethercomensis in 1923, based on a partial skeleton, the jaws, vertebrae, parts of the pelvis and parts of the leg. And then he named Megalosaurus lideckeri based on a tooth. In 1932, he changed Megalosaurus nethercomensis to Magnosaurus and referred the Lydechori tooth to it as well. But it wasn't until the 1990s that scientists really looked at the differences between Megalosaurus and Magnosaurus. And there are differences, such as in the shin bones. And we do talk about magnosaurus in episode 407.

[Garrett]

So one that's still considered valid.

[Sabrina]

Yep.

[Garrett]

Hey, hey.

[Sabrina]

Yeah, there are quite a few that are still valid.

[Garrett]

Just not a Megalosaurus anymore.

[Sabrina]

But we still have Megalosaurus bucklandi. And then the last one I want to mention is Torvosaurus. That was named in 1979 by Galton and Jensen and it's a sister taxa to Megalosaurus. It lived in the Jurassic and what is now Europe. We talked a little bit about it in episode 16, at least the second species, Torvosaurus gurneyii. There are two species. There's also Torvosaurus tanneri. There were some fossils found in Tanzania that were named quote, unquote, Megalosaurus ingens by Janinch in 1920. And that's based on a 4.7 inch or 12 centimeter long tooth. And then it got reclassified as torosaurus in 2020. So those are some of the links of Megalosaurus to other dinosaurs. Yeah, dinosaurs that we still consider valid and some that we no longer do.

[Garrett]

It's interesting to me how many Tyrannosaurs showed up in the Megalosaurus genus. Considering Megalosaurus was about a hundred million years before T. Rex, that, I mean, I could appreciate if they were found really close together and in a similar layer of rock that you'd say, okay, well, they're all Megalosaurus, they all these big teeth. But when one is a hundred million years later, like when you have Torvosaurus, which is just Late Cretaceous versus what, like Middle Jurassic. That's a huge time range to be lumping together things in the same genus.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. And I mentioned a few that were fossils found from the Triassic too.

[Garrett]

So they had the entire Mesozoic span for named with Megalosaurus. That's really funny.

[Sabrina]

I think that's what happens when you're the first one and people are still piecing together and there's so much had no idea what we didn't know.

[Garrett]

Yeah. And whether or not they had good dating on those rocks yet is another question. And it could also just be one of those differences where over time, like we were saying, people sort of have landed on a standard where you usually just do one species per genus, but there are other parts of the animal kingdom where there's hundreds of species in a single genus. So I guess it just depends. That's one of those lumper versus splitter, I think.

[Sabrina]

Also, as more fossils were found, it was easier to spot the differences.

[Garrett]

Yes. And as you fill in the family tree and Megalosaurus ends up showing up all over the place. And you can't have a Megalosaurus tyrannosaur over here and a Megalosaurus carnosaur over here and other named things in between because they have to be the closest relatives if they're in the same genus name.

[Sabrina]

So that's our megalosaur mania, at least in terms of species. Before we get into Megalosaurus revisited, we're going to take a quick break for our sponsors.

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[Grainger Advertiser]

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[Sabrina]

And now we'll get into Megalosaurus revisited. We first covered Megalosaurus as our dinosaur of the day in episode 47. Not much has changed since then. But for this episode, since we're celebrating Megalosaurus, we can talk about the history of Megalosaurus and how our understanding of it has changed.

[Garrett]

We've definitely learned a lot since episode 47.

[Sabrina]

We have. Yes. But in terms of research done on Megalosaurus, it hasn't changed too much in

[Garrett]

the last eight years.

[Sabrina]

Yeah.

[Garrett]

Considering it was named 200 years ago.

[Sabrina]

It's a small fraction, especially once all those species got sorted out.

[Garrett]

Yeah.

[Sabrina]

So megalosaurus was probably the first dinosaur fossil ever described, at least in the way that we describe dinosaur fossils today. And I say that because the first fossil was found in 1676.

[Garrett]

The first dinosaur fossil, likely Megalosaurus fossil. Yeah.

[Sabrina]

It was also. Also the first and third dinosaur fossils to be illustrated were megalosaurus bones. The first one was quote, unquote, scrotum humanum in 1677. And just for fun, the second dinosaur fossil illustrated was of a sauropod tooth. And then the third dinosaur fossil was a fish tooth. It turned out to be a megalosaurus tooth. But at the time, in 1699, they thought it was a fish tooth and then later figured out it belonged to a theropod.

[Museum Visitor]

And.

[Garrett]

Yeah, and that was, I believe, in a drawing of a whole bunch of teeth. Right. I might be mixing it up with another picture because a lot of these early discoveries were teeth.

[Sabrina]

I'm a lot more familiar with the story of scrotum humanum than I am with this fish tooth.

[Garrett]

Okay.

[Sabrina]

And unfortunately, that tooth has been lost. Fish tooth. Fish tooth turned megalosaurus tooth. So scrotum humanum was a lower leg bone or femur that was described by Robert Plotted. The bone was so large, there were a lot of stories on where this large bone could possibly have come from. One idea at first was that it was a large elephant that Romans rode into battle, and then later it was

[Garrett]

thought to be a giant human, thus the scrotum humanum.

[Sabrina]

Well, I'll get into that really quick. We think it was probably a megalosaurus leg bone. Based on this detailed illustration. There's enough details to know that because unfortunately, the bone has been lost.

[Garrett]

And based on where it came from.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Now, we've even talked about on our show before that we thought it was called scrotum humanum because people thought it looked like a pair of human testicles. But it turns out that could have just been an error by the illustrator accidentally captioning it wrong. Because Robert Plot never said that. He actually always said it was a leg bone.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it's a pretty clear part of a femur. When you look at it, it's like, okay, that is very much the articulating surface that you see at the end of a leg bone.

[Sabrina]

I think once it was published as scrotum humanum, that did lead to people talking about it as if it were testicles. Like I said, the bone has been lost. The paleontologist Darren Naish has made an effort to find it and had a really in depth blog post about this, and it seemed promising because he'd heard from a colleague that there was a bone that looked a lot like it at the Asmalian Museum in Oxford. So he and a team studied it, but then figured out that it weighed only half as much as the original bone should. So for now, the original bone is still considered to be lost. William Buckland officially named Megalosaurus on February 20, 1824. The whole reason we're celebrating 200 years.

[Garrett]

200 years and a day ago, yes.

[Sabrina]

And that was based on a partial jaw that was found near Oxford. Buckland and William Conybeare worked together to study those fossils and then Buckland's wife Mary illustrated those bones.

[Garrett]

She's a very good artist.

[Sabrina]

Yes. It's a beautiful illustration. And Conybear was the one who came up with the name Megalosaurus. It was the name Megalosaurus announced in 1822, but not formally so briefly. It was a Gnomum nudum.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Partly because it didn't have a species name, it was just Megalosaurus.

[Sabrina]

It didn't get a species name until a few years after it was officially named. But Georges Cuvier urged Buckland to formally name the animal, so Buckland formally named it Megalosaurus. Again, just Megalosaurus, no species name. But it got that formal name on February 20th of 1824, at a meeting of the Geological Society of London, which is the same meeting where Coney Bear described a complete plesiosaurus. So a lot going on at that meeting.

[Garrett]

Yeah.

[Sabrina]

When I read it to me, it felt a little bit like a plead, and I'll read it to you and then maybe you'll see what I mean. He said, quote, I am induced to lay before the Geological Society the annexed representations of parts of the skeleton of an enormous fossil animal found at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, about 12 miles to the northwest of Oxford, in the hope that imperfect as are the present materials, their communication to the public may induce those who possess other parts of the same reptile to transmit to the Society such further information as may lead to a more complete elucidation of its osteology. So to me, that sounded like a, please, we've named this dinosaur, or we've named. Because the word dinosaur hadn't been coined yet, we've named this animal, we only have a few of its bones, and if you have more information, please let us know. That's how it sounded like to me.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it does sound that way, especially where they're specifying 12 miles northwest of Oxford. So, like, if you found anything, like, almost like you're putting up a lost pet poster, but instead it's like lost dinosaur bones. Last seen 12 miles northwest of Oxford. Please contact Georges Cuvier.

[Sabrina]

Well, William Buckland.

[Garrett]

Oh, yeah, Buckland.

[Sabrina]

Yes, they did. Like I said, they named it based on that. Right. Lower jaw with one tooth. But there were also some vertebrae, a neck rib, a rib, parts of the pelvis and hips, a thigh bone and a part of the foot. So it's not a bad start.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, it's a lot better than finds today often are.

[Sabrina]

And you can see most of these bones at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which we have. And it's. It's a really cool display.

[Garrett]

It is. It's very old school. It's also a very old school building, so it all fits together nicely. But it is cool to see just sort of the humble beginnings. Even though it is better than some finds. There's no complete skull. You mostly have. That jaw is the most charismatic part of the fossil with a couple teeth in it. And yeah, there is a hip and some leg going with it. So you get sort of the general idea about how big it is and the fact that it's. It probably stood bipedally, fairly tall. Ish. And that it had big, sharp teeth. But other than that, you don't really get much of a sense of what it exactly looked like.

[Sabrina]

Right. But there is a good description of the history of how it was found and then some illustrations that show how we. How our understanding of how it's looked has changed over the years.

[Garrett]

Yes. Yeah. Of course, as we find more close relatives, we can fill in some of those gaps.

[Sabrina]

Yes. So as I said, Buckland didn't give Megalosaurus a species name, and that happened a lot in those days. Ferdinand von Richen first tried to give it a species name as Megalosaurus conyberi in 1826, but no one really used that one. So it's a gnomon oblique. And then in 1827, Gideon Mantell, who named the second dinosaur Iguanodon, named it Megalosaurus bucklandi. And that's the name that has stuck.

[Garrett]

It's fitting.

[Sabrina]

Yeah, it is. Coney Bear Eye is also fitting since they worked on the fossil together. So I can see why that name also came up. But as I mentioned, Richard Owen didn't coin that term dinosaur until almost 20 years after Megalosaurus was Named the word dinosaur wasn't really a word until 1841.

[Garrett]

So set your calendars for 2041 when we do the 200th anniversary of the word dinosaur.

[Sabrina]

Oh my goodness, that feels far away. At least seven Megalosaurus individuals have been found and a lot of teeth have been found. There's some trace fossils thought to belong to Megalosaurus, some tracks that have been found near Oxford. But as we mentioned in our trace fossil miniseries, it's really hard to know for sure what animal made the traces.

[Garrett]

Yes. Yeah. The footprint might look like a Megalosaurus foot, but. But there were a lot of other big three toed animals walking around.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. So even though I just said that they had a good number of bones to start with, that wasn't really much to work with. Especially when you're working with the first, what turns out to be non avian dinosaur named.

[Garrett]

Yes, yeah. So in today's context where we have tons of different dinosaurs to help fill in gaps, getting that much is decent because it'll show you a lot of where it fits in the family tree. But if you're trying to piece together an entire animal from scratch without any of the skull, that's not so good.

[Sabrina]

Yes. So Buckland, his estimates are a bit different from today's estimates. He estimated that megalosaurus was 60 to 70ft long and he thought that Megalosaurus was probably amphibious. He also thought that Megalosaurus looked like a giant lizard that walked on all fours, though he did understand that based on its thigh bone, it would have been more upright than sprawled. And you can see this giant lizard look in Crystal palace dinosaurs which were made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in the 1850s. I also kind of think it looks bear like. Yes, but with a long dragging tail and a small hump around its neck.

[Garrett]

Yeah. If you had to describe it, compared to any modern living animal, or maybe even including extinct animals, a bear is probably the best description.

[Sabrina]

Yeah, but with a longer face.

[Garrett]

Yeah, a little bit. And it looks a lot like the Iguanodon and the Hylaeosaurus that they made for Crystal palace dinosaurs. So they clearly had a sort of this is what a dinosaur looked like idea. And then with some slight variations on the theme.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

Which in real life, it's funny because those three look nothing alike. You've got an ankylosaur, a hadrosauroid or ornithopod, and. Yeah, a theropod. I mean, I guess two of them are bipedal at least.

[Sabrina]

Yeah.

[Garrett]

But all three of them were quadrupedal in Crystal Palace.

[Sabrina]

Yes. But again, early days. And they gave Megalosaurus the hump on the shoulder based on high spines that they thought belonged to Megalosaurus. But now we know that they belong to Becklespinax, which is now known as Altospinax, and. And that Altospine X we only know the three back vertebrae, which has very tall spines. So the paleo art on that is speculative. And those spines are nearly 14 inches or about 35 centimeters tall.

[Garrett]

Yeah, I mean, if you put those in a part of Megalosaurus back, you would end up with a hump.

[Sabrina]

Yep.

[Garrett]

So that's totally reasonable.

[Sabrina]

And I'll get into what we think Megalosaurus looks like today. But first, another break for our sponsors. So now Megalosaurus is estimated to be about 30ft or 9 meters long and weighing 1500 pounds or 700 kilograms, although there are later estimates that put it at 20ft or 6 meters long.

[Garrett]

So it's what, half to a third of the original length estimate?

[Sabrina]

Yep.

[Garrett]

I mean, 60 to 70ft long for a predator would be really impressive.

[Sabrina]

Yes. Now, it is hard to know the exact size of Megalosaurus because we are missing some bones that would help. And no complete skeletons have been found yet. But like you said earlier, Garrett, finds of close relatives like Torvosaurus have helped. And again, Torvosaurus is Megalosaurus closest relative, being a sister taxonomy.

[Garrett]

So someone could lump those two together potentially and argue that they should both be species of Megalosaurus. Oh, I'm just saying someone could. If the only sister tax are eligible for being lumped like that, all the other ones that are like Tyrannosaurs elsewhere will never be a Megalosaurus again.

[Sabrina]

Mm. So, like we were saying, we now know that Megalosaurus walked on two legs, not four, and it kept its tail off the ground. It had a short, wide shoulder blade, a robust humerus or upper arm, and overall was pretty robust and muscled. It had short arms and a long head. Its skull isn't too well known, but it does seem to have had a large head with large teeth and a robust lower jaw.

[Garrett]

It's very robust, yes.

[Sabrina]

Lots of muscles. And it may have been an apex

[Garrett]

predator, but despite its overall robustness, maybe compared to other theropods and dinosaurs, compared to the original depictions of Megalosaurus, it's a skinny, like, gracile animal because it went from, like tree trunks for front limbs and hind limbs to much skinnier legs and, you know, regular arms. Yes, and also a much smaller head rather than that giant triangular head.

[Sabrina]

Good point, good point. It's much less lumbery looking.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it looks like a typical theropod.

[Sabrina]

Basically it lived in coastal habitats and that might have been what led Buckland to believe it was amphibious. There's still a lot we don't know about Megalosaurus, though. At one point there was even a debate about whether or not Megalosaurus was valid. Was it a nomum dubium after being a wastebasket taxon with the more than 50 species classified as Megalosaurus? But then Roger Benson and others analyzed Megalosaurus bones and found an. Yes, it had unique characters in the lower jaw and it was valid.

[Garrett]

Yeah, I mean, they have quite a bit of it, so there should be enough there to identify it as a species and then it's got to have priority. Right. Because people have been talking about it forever and lumping all sorts of species into that genus.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. It would feel weird to have Megalosaurus go away.

[Garrett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sabrina]

So the type and now only species again is Megalosaurus bucklandi. The genus name means great lizard. And again, it's the first non avian dinosaur to be named the way that we name dinosaurs today. It lived in the Middle Jurassic in what is now England. And the species name Bucklandi is in honor of William Buckland.

[Garrett]

Yeah, it's interesting because I always hear it pronounced Bucklandi, but it's spelled like Bucklandi because there's two I's at the end. Yes, but I've always heard Bucklandi. So glad you're saying it that way.

[Sabrina]

That's. Yep, that's what we're going with here. Like I mentioned earlier, Garrett, Megalosaurus has been mentioned in literary works. Bleak House, written by Charles Dickens, was a novel first published as a 20 episode serial between 1852 and 1853. So I guess that's quite a few years after Megalosaurus was named. But still within just a few decades.

[Garrett]

Yeah, and that's way before the word dinosaur became a household name because that's still before the Crystal palace dinosaurs or right around the Crystal palace dinosaurs.

[Sabrina]

But yeah, and he wrote in the first paragraph, quote, it would not be wonderful to meet a megalosaurus 40ft long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

[Garrett]

That's true. Maybe an understatement, not being wonderful to meet a huge predator.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

I guess it depends on your context. I would think it was wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus. Ew. At least for a couple seconds.

[Sabrina]

Maybe a well fed Megalosaurus.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Or meet it From a distance like those vehicles where you could maybe meet a polar bear, but it's down like 10ft below you.

[Sabrina]

So Charles Dickens is sometimes cited as the first time mentioning Megalosaurus in literature, but it turns out that that's not true, though he was involved with the first time, at least from what I could find. Maybe there's an even earlier time. If someone knows, let us know. But Charles Dickens edited a weekly literary magazine called Household Words. And Megalosaurus is mentioned in the August 16, 1851 edition, Volume 3, Number 73, if you want to look it up. It was written by Henry Morley in the story Our Phantom Ship on an Antediluvian Cruise. And in the story we voyage into the past and Megalosaurus gets a whole paragraph instead of just the one line in this story.

[Garrett]

Wow. And it's earlier. That's cool.

[Sabrina]

So I'll read it to you. Here is a land reptile, before which we take the liberty of running. His teeth look too decidedly carnivorous. A sort of crocodile, 30ft long with a big body mounted on high thick legs is not likely to be friendly with our legs and bodies. Megalosaurus is his name, and doubtless greedy is his nature. Mercy upon us. There's a young crocodile flying. Look at his long jaw and sharp teeth. He is sweeping down upon us. Stretching his long neck out, he touches ground not after us, but yonder little kangaroo no bigger than a rat. But now the last little crocodile tucks his wings under his arms. They work on an enormously long little finger. He tucks his wings under his arms and begins running on four legs as if he really were a little crocodile and not a bird. Megalosaurus is after him, away. He runs into a lake of water, swimming there like a fish. And now lands, takes flight and perches on a tree.

[Garrett]

That's a very interesting description.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

So in that, the whole flying crocodile thing, I guess, is a pterosaur and Megalosaurus is trying to catch it, I think so.

[Sabrina]

It's interesting too that in this earlier description, Megalosaurus is 30ft long. And then Charles Dickens says 40ft long.

[Garrett]

Yeah. And other people are saying 50 to 60ft long.

[Sabrina]

Well, 50 and 60 was the first. Yeah.

[Garrett]

Oh, that was way back. Okay. Yeah. In the beginning it sounded like, oh, yeah, that's a pretty good description of Megalosaurus. And then there's this whole flying crocodile thing in the middle where it's like, okay, yeah, that's. That's an older writing. Yes, but a pretty good description of Megalosaurus still in that, you know, it's a scary carnivorous reptile. Correct. Use of reptile, rather than calling it a lizard or something. And that it stood high off the ground, even saying, you know, the big body mounted high on thick legs, like you were saying, the robustness. So, yeah, that's a cool description.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. I do like reading dinosaur fiction.

[Garrett]

Yeah.

[Sabrina]

I think it's starting to become a bigger thing, but it's nice to know it's been around for a while.

[Grainger Advertiser 2]

Mm.

[Sabrina]

And our fun fact. Turns out I did the whole episode on Megalosaurus.

[Garrett]

You sure did.

[Sabrina]

Our fun fact has to do with people knowing about dinosaurs. Well before Richard Owen and before megalosaurus was named, the first dinosaur fossil found in Africa may have been found 500 years before Robert Plott found his Megalosaurus scrotum Humanum bone. This was published in Geological Society London special publications by Julian Benoit and others. So, again, the way that we study and how we talk about and understand dinosaurs today goes back to Megalosaurus and the first fossils found in the 1600s. But again, people have known about dinosaurs much longer than that. Dinosaurs have been inspiring people all over the world. Well before Richard Owen coined the term in 1841, there are legends of dragons and serpents in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America. In Western Australia, there are large dinosaur tracks that resembled enormous emu prints that inspired people. In North America, people have talked about monstrous animals with large teeth and claws that used to dominate the land before turning to stone. And for this paper, the team studied fossils in South Africa, according to an article in the Conversation, they said, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for as long as there have been people on the continent.

[Garrett]

So maybe much longer than 500 years ago.

[Sabrina]

Yes, but it's hard to prove. So one example is there's an archaeological site, the site of Bolala in Lesotho. It was occupied between 1100-1700 AD, and it's also surrounded by sediments that date back from 200 to 180 million years ago.

[Garrett]

Okay, so that 500 years is 500 years plus or minus a couple hundred years.

[Sabrina]

Yes.

[Garrett]

Gotcha.

[Sabrina]

So that area of Lesotho is known for dinosaurs, such as Massospondylus.

[Garrett]

Nice.

[Sabrina]

And in 1990, archaeologists, not paleontologists, but archaeologists, found a massospondylus finger bone that had been moved to a cave, and there were no fossil skeletons in the cave. So it seems that somebody picked it up and took it to the cave. And maybe it was a toy or they took it out of curiosity. Or it could have been for healing rituals. It's unclear why it was taken to

[Garrett]

the cave or like a kid that just picks up a rock on the way home.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. It's also not clear when that bone came to that cave. So it could have been anytime between 1100 and 1700 AD. So if it was 1100, that means almost up to 500 years before Robert Plot found his dinosaur bone. But like you were saying, Garrett, it could have been after as well. There's a lot of fossils that have been found after heavy rains. We see this all over the world, even today. Like in the last few years after heavy rains, we hear about some big dinosaur discoveries.

[Garrett]

Yeah.

[Sabrina]

And other fossils.

[Garrett]

Yeah. Rivers are really good at eroding out riverbanks and then fossils pop out of them just like they do along seashores.

[Sabrina]

Yeah. And some of these fossils in Lesotho have been identified as a dragon like monster known as Kaluma Lumo.

[Garrett]

I think we've heard about that one before.

[Sabrina]

I think so too. So this paper, they reviewed what's known about African indigenous knowledge of fossils. But there is still a lot to learn.

[Garrett]

I love that stuff so much. It's so cool to hear about how people have been interested in these bones and these fossils that they found before Western civilization had a name, dinosaur. You don't have to have the word dinosaur to appreciate the fossils and to find them interesting and to find some

[Sabrina]

meaning in them and to even understand fossilization that things turned to stone.

[Museum Visitor]

Yeah.

[Garrett]

And I love that some of those early groups, earlier groups noticed the connection to birds, like immediately. Whereas it became such debate in England and the Americas and places for many years before people finally accepted that modern birds are in fact dinosaurs. There are people that were like a thousand years before that were like, of course, these are tracks of a giant bird. That's not hard to understand.

[Sabrina]

Yes. So that wraps up this episode of Aino Dino and our celebration of 200 years of dinosaur history. I guess 200 plus if you count all the people who were talking about fossils before Megalosaurus. Stay tuned. Next week we have another new dinosaur to talk about. A small one from Morocco.

[Garrett]

Nice.

[Sabrina]

And if you want links to the sources from this episode, then head over to our website, our show notes on inodino.com thanks again. And until next time,