Engraving from William Buckland's " Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield ", 1824.

* Robert Plot publishes The Natural History of Oxford-shire, being an essay toward the natural history of England, in which he describes the fossilised femur of a human giant, now known to be from the dinosaur Megalosaurus.

* The first fossilised bone of what is now known to be a dinosaur is discovered in England by Robert Plot, the femur of a Megalosaurus from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

However, the rules of the ICZN state that if a name has never been considered valid after 1899, it could be removed from competition for priority, becoming a nomen oblitum ( forgotten name ), while the junior synonym ( in this case Megalosaurus bucklandi ) could be made a nomen protectum ( protected name ).

Caption reads " anterior extremity of the right lower jaw of the Megalosaurus from Stonesfield near Oxford ".

Some confusion still exists, for at one time, all theropods from Europe were given the title Megalosaurus.

Furthermore, several researchers failed to find any characteristics in the jaw that could be used to distinguish Megalosaurus from its relatives, and many began to regard it as a nomen dubium.

However, a comprehensive study by Benson and colleagues in 2008, and several related analyses published in subsequent years, overturned the previous consensus by identifying several apomorphies, or distinguishing characteristics, in the lower jaw that could be used to separate Megalosaurus from other megalosaurids.

As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

Plot is known for looking for natural curiosities in several English counties, and for writing The Natural History of Oxford-shire ( 1677 ) in which he described the fossilised femur of a giant ( now known to be from the dinosaur Megalosaurus ) and The Natural History of Staffordshire ( 1686 ), in which he describes a double sunset viewable from Leek and the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.

In the sixties, this tendency was still strong as is shown by the fact that Oskar Kuhn renamed Megalosaurus lonzeensis Dollo 1903 from Belgium into Ornithomimus lonzeensis ( today understood to be a abelisauroid claw ), and Dale Rusell in 1967 renamed Struthiomimus currellii Parks 1933 and Struthiomimus ingens Parks 1933 into Ornithomimus currellii and Ornithomimus ingens.

Reconstruction of Megalosaurus by Samuel Griswold Goodrich from Illustrated Natural History of the Animal Kingdom.

At just long, 80 centimetres tall ( 31 in ), and weighing just 30 kilograms ( 66 lb ), Staurikosaurus was tiny in comparison to later theropods like Megalosaurus.

The bone has since been lost but the illustration is detailed enough that some have since identified it as that of Megalosaurus.

In 1826, Ferdinand von Ritgen gave this dinosaur a complete binomial, Megalosaurus conybeari, which was not used by later authors and is now considered a nomen oblitum.

This is typical of early reconstructions in presenting Megalosaurus as a quadruped ; modern reconstructions make it biped al, like all theropods

However, the long tail would have balanced the body and head and so Megalosaurus is now restored as bipedal — like all other theropods — about 9 meters in length.

Living in what is now Europe, during the Jurassic Period ( 181 to 169 million years ago ), Megalosaurus may have hunted stegosaurs and sauropods.

Charles Dickens ' novel Bleak House begins with a description of muddy streets, whose primordial character is emphasized by mention of Megalosaurus: " Implacable November weather.

In the TV show Dinosaurs, Earl Sinclair, the father, is a Megalosaurus.

Both Summerlee and Challenger are undecided if the attacking beast was a Megalosaurus or Allosaurus but they imply it is a Megalosaur as " Any one of the larger carnivorous dinosaurs would meet the case.

Torvosaurus is related to the earlier Megalosaurus but is seemingly more advanced.

Technically, though, the name was published after the advent of binomial nomenclature, and so if it was truly intended to represent the establishment of a new genus it would have priority over Megalosaurus.

Sarjeant submitted a petition to the ICZN to formally suppress the genus name Scrotum in favor of Megalosaurus.

Buckland identified the organism as being a giant animal related to the Sauria ( lizards ) and he placed it in the new genus Megalosaurus, estimating the animal to be 12 m long in life.

Further research confirmed this hypothesis, and the genus Megalosaurus and species M. bucklandii became generally regarded as applying only to the type specimen, specifically to the species that produced the lower jaw.

The first fossil bones to be described as those of a dinosaur of the genus Megalosaurus were found close to Stonesfield and named in 1824 by William Buckland.

Megalosaurus had a relatively large head and its teeth were those of a carnivore.

For decades after its discovery, Megalosaurus was viewed by many researchers as a definitive or typical large carnivorous dinosaur.

Furthermore, the partial femur was too incomplete to definitely be referred to Megalosaurus and not a different, contemporary theropod.

Replica of theropod footprints attributed to Megalosaurus

Oxford Clay remains attributed to Megalosaurus were actually indeterminate theropod remains.

When first described in 1924, Velociraptor was placed in the family Megalosauridae, as was the case with most carnivorous dinosaurs at the time ( Megalosauridae, like Megalosaurus, functioned as a sort of ' wastebin ' taxon, where many unrelated species were grouped together ).

The dinosaurs were Parasaurolophus, Megalosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Rhamphorhynchus ( not a dinosaur ), Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Apatosaurus,

In 1852, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build a model of Megalosaurus for the exhibition of dinosaurs at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, where it remains to this day.

Repeated descriptions of Megalosaurus hunting Iguanodon ( another of the earliest dinosaurs named ) through the forests that then covered the continent are probably inaccurate, because Iguanodon skeletons are found in much younger Early Cretaceous formations.

A Megalosaurus was one of the main dinosaurs featured in John Brosnan's 1984 novel, Carnosaur, though it was not featured in its film adaptation.

Gideon Mantell originally estimated that the Hylaeosaurus was about long, or about half the size of the other two original dinosaurs, the Iguanodon and the Megalosaurus.

He was one of the founders of the museum of natural history at Caen, and acted as honorary curator ; he was likewise one of the founders of the Socité linnenne de Normandie ( 1823 ), to the transactions of which society he communicated papers on Teleosaurus, Poekilopleuron ( Megalosaurus ), on Jurassic mollusca and brachiopoda.

A fossilized Neanderthal bone will never be found in the same stratum as a fossilized Megalosaurus, for example, because neanderthals and megalosauruses lived during different geological periods, separated by many millions of years.

A year later, in 1827, Gideon Mantell included Megalosaurus in his geological survey of southeastern England, and assigned the species its current binomial name, Megalosaurus bucklandii.

* Megalosaurus and Cetiosaurus footprints are identified at Ardley, Oxfordshire, England, by Christopher Jackson.