A group of boys celebrated alongside scientists this week to mark the 200th anniversary of the first formal naming of a dinosaur.
Oxford University’s first reader in geology, William Buckland, described the species Megalosaurus to the Geological Society on 20 February 1824.
On 20 February 2024, Michael Noone and a group of boys joined the party at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to see the original specimens (normally kept under lock and key away from public view), including the famous partial lower jaw with the ‘mega’ reptilian tooth sticking out of it.
Michael said “the boys interacted brilliantly with the scientists and archivists at the museum, looking at the fossils themselves alongside various documentary material from the time. Guy G. even scanned a Velociraptor skull.”
