ANNIVERSARY 200 years of dinosaur research
“A length exceeding 40 feet and a bulk equal to an elephant seven feet high…” wrote the English theologist and geologist William Buckland in 1824, when he presented the world’s first scientific description of a dinosaur. “The vertebral column and extremities resemble those of quadrapeds, but the teeth show the creature to have been oviparous [egg-laying], and to have belonged to the class of Saurus, or Lizards… I have ventured to assign to it the name ‘Megalosaurus’.”
Dinosaurs remain enigmatic
Since then, 200 years of discoveries and the rise of palaeontology as a science have seen our knowledge of dinosaurs increase dramatically. Yet in a science where so many models have been based on so little evidence, these extinct giants remain a mystery in many ways. Researchers are still seeking answers to fundamental questions,
