Misplaced Pages

#868131

137-541: Megalosaurus (meaning "great lizard", from Greek μέγας , megas , meaning 'big', 'tall' or 'great' and σαῦρος , sauros , meaning 'lizard') is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic Epoch ( Bathonian stage, 166 million years ago) of southern England . Although fossils from other areas have been assigned to the genus, the only certain remains of Megalosaurus come from Oxfordshire and date to

274-591: A Stonesfield Slate mine during the early 1790s and was acquired in October 1797 by Christopher Pegge for 10s.6d. and added to the collection of the Anatomy School of Christ Church, Oxford . In the early nineteenth century, more discoveries were made. In 1815, John Kidd reported the find of bones of giant tetrapods, again at the Stonesfield quarry. The layers there are currently considered part of

411-532: A conserved name to ensure its priority. However, the Executive Secretary of the ICZN at the time, Philip K. Tubbs, did not consider the petition to be admissible, concluding that the term "Scrotum humanum", published merely as a label for an illustration, did not constitute the valid creation of a new name, and stated that there was no evidence it was ever intended as such. Furthermore, the partial femur

548-478: A hyposphene – hypantrum complex, the hyposphene having a triangular transverse cross-section. The height of the dorsal spines of the rear dorsals is unknown, but a high spine on a tail vertebra of the New Park Quarry material, specimen NHMUK PV R9677, suggests the presence of a crest on the hip area. The spines of the five vertebrae of the sacrum form a supraneural plate, fused at the top. The undersides of

685-412: A long bone and comprises a diaphysis (shaft or body ) and two epiphyses (extremities) that articulate with adjacent bones in the hip and knee. The upper or proximal extremity (close to the torso ) contains the head , neck , the two trochanters and adjacent structures. The upper extremity is the thinnest femoral extremity, the lower extremity is the thickest femoral extremity. The head of

822-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

959-402: A "wastebasket taxon", and many large or small carnivorous dinosaurs from Europe and elsewhere were assigned to the genus. This slowly changed during the 20th century, when it became common to restrict the genus to fossils found in the middle Jurassic of England. Further restriction occurred in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, researchers such as Ronan Allain and Dan Chure suggesting that

1096-401: A crown length up to seven centimetres. The teeth are supported from behind by tall, triangular, unfused interdental plates. The cutting edges bear 18 to 20 denticula per centimetre. The tooth formula is probably 4, 13–14/13–14. The jugal bone is pneumatised, pierced by a large foramen from the direction of the antorbital fenestra. It was probably hollowed out by an outgrowth of an air sac in

1233-413: A different group of muscles . These compartments are named the anterior , medial and posterior fascial compartments . A femoral fracture that involves the femoral head , femoral neck or the shaft of the femur immediately below the lesser trochanter may be classified as a hip fracture , especially when associated with osteoporosis . Femur fractures can be managed in a pre-hospital setting with

1370-525: A fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as

1507-596: A horizontal tail. Its forelimbs were short, though very robust. Megalosaurus had a rather large head, equipped with long curved teeth. It was generally a robust and heavily muscled animal. At the time Megalosaurus lived, Europe formed an island archipelago around the Tethys Ocean , with Megalosaurus inhabiting an island formed by the London–Brabant Massif , where it likely served as the apex predator of its ecosystem, coexisting with other dinosaurs like

SECTION 10

#1732798825869

1644-484: A length of 232 millimetres and a minimal shaft circumference of 142 millimetres. The ulna is straight in front view and has a large olecranon , the attachment process for the Musculus triceps brachii . Radius , wrist and hand are unknown. In the pelvis, the ilium is long and low, with a convex upper profile. Its front blade is triangular and rather short; at the front end there is a small drooping point, separated by

1781-440: A length of about 86 centimetres. In general, Megalosaurus had the typical build of a large theropod. It was bipedal, the horizontal torso being balanced by a long horizontal tail. The hindlimbs were long and strong with three forward-facing weight-bearing toes, the forelimbs relatively short but exceptionally robust and probably carrying three digits. Being a carnivore , its large elongated head bore long dagger-like teeth to slice

1918-489: A limestone quarry at Ardley , 20 kilometres northeast of Oxford . They were thought to have been made by Megalosaurus and possibly also some left by Cetiosaurus . There are replicas of some of these footprints, set across the lawn of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History . One track was of a theropod accelerating from walking to running. According to Benson, such referrals are unprovable, as

2055-668: A mammal-like quadruped. The sculpture in Crystal Palace Park shows a conspicuous hump on the shoulders and it has been suggested this was inspired by a set of high vertebral spines acquired by Owen in the early 1850s. Today, they are seen as a separate genus Becklespinax , but Owen referred them to Megalosaurus . The models at the exhibition created a general public awareness for the first time, at least in England, that ancient reptiles had existed. The presumption that carnivorous dinosaurs, like Megalosaurus , were quadrupeds

2192-510: A massive bone plate. On the front outer side of the shaft a large triangular deltopectoral crest is present, the attachment for the Musculus pectoralis major and the Musculus deltoideus . It covers about the upper half of the shaft length, its apex positioned rather low. The ulna is extremely robust, for its absolute size more heavily built than with any other known member of the Tetanurae. The only known specimen, NHMUK PV OR 36585, has

2329-408: A more flexible joint, allowing for a modicum of horizontal movement. The top inner side of the third metatarsal carries a unique ridge that fits into a groove along the top outer side of the second metatarsal, causing a tighter connection. For decades after its discovery, Megalosaurus was seen by researchers as the definitive or typical large carnivorous dinosaur. As a result, it began to function as

2466-402: A notch from the pubic peduncle. The rear blade is roughly rectangular. The outer side of the ilium is concave, serving as an attachment surface for the Musculus iliofemoralis , the main thigh muscle. Above the hip joint, on this surface a low vertical ridge is present with conspicuous vertical grooves. The bottom of the rear blade is excavated by a narrow but deep trough forming a bony shelf for

2603-430: A piece of the pubic bone ; OUM J13565, a part of the ischium ; OUM J13561, a thigh bone and OUM J13572, the lower part of a second metatarsal . As he himself was aware, these did not all belong to the same individual; only the sacrum was articulated. Because they represented several individuals, the described fossils formed a syntype series. By modern standards, from these a single specimen has to be selected to serve as

2740-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

2877-459: A rather high position on the rear side and continued downwards to a point low on the front side of the shaft. The ischium is S-shaped in side view, showing at the transition point between the two curvatures a rough boss on the outer side. On the front edge of the ischial shaft an obturator process is present in the form of a low ridge, at its top separated from the shaft by a notch. To below, this ridge continues into an exceptionally thick bony skirt at

SECTION 20

#1732798825869

3014-513: A rough surface. The underside of the second sacral vertebra has an angular longitudinal keel. A ridge on the upper side of the third metatarsal connected to a groove in the side of the second metatarsal. The middle of the front edge of the scapula forms a thin crest. In 1824, Buckland assigned Megalosaurus to the Sauria, assuming within the Sauria a close affinity with modern lizards, more than with crocodiles. In 1842, Owen made Megalosaurus one of

3151-622: A separate group: the Dinosauria. Megalosaurus was thus one of the three original dinosaurs. In 1852, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build a life-sized concrete model of Megalosaurus for the exhibition of prehistoric animals at the Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham, where it remains to this day. Hawkins worked under the direction of Owen and the statue reflected Owen's ideas that Megalosaurus would have been

3288-405: A single species. If so, several additional distinctive traits can be observed in other parts of the skeleton. The low vertical ridge on the outer side of the ilium, above the hip joint, shows parallel vertical grooves. The bony skirts between the shafts of the ischia are thick and touch each other forming an almost flat surface. There is a boss present on the lower outer side of the ischium shaft with

3425-542: A strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either

3562-595: A theropod skeleton in Oxford, arranging the known Megalosaurus bones, held by recesses in cardboard sheets, in a more or less natural position. During the 1870s, North American discoveries of large theropods, like Allosaurus , confirmed that they were bipedal. The Oxford University Museum of Natural History display contains most of the specimens from the original description by Buckland. The quarries at Stonesfield , which were worked until 1911, continued to produce Megalosaurus bucklandii fossils, mostly single bones from

3699-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

3836-442: Is a bony projection occasionally present on the proximal femur near the superior border of the gluteal tuberosity. When present, it is oblong, rounded, or conical in shape and sometimes continuous with the gluteal ridge. A structure of minor importance in humans, the incidence of the third trochanter varies from 17–72% between ethnic groups and it is frequently reported as more common in females than in males. The lower extremity of

3973-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

4110-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

4247-407: Is in its natural oblique position the lower surfaces of the two condyles lie practically in the same horizontal plane. The condyles are not quite parallel with one another; the long axis of the lateral is almost directly antero-posterior, but that of the medial runs backward and medialward. Their opposed surfaces are small, rough, and concave, and form the walls of the intercondyloid fossa . This fossa

Megalosaurus - Misplaced Pages Continue

4384-407: Is limited above by a ridge, the intercondyloid line , and below by the central part of the posterior margin of the patellar surface. The posterior cruciate ligament of the knee joint is attached to the lower and front part of the medial wall of the fossa and the anterior cruciate ligament to an impression on the upper and back part of its lateral wall. The articular surface of the lower end of

4521-430: Is not known, making it impossible to determine whether the snout profile was curved or rectangular. A rather stubby snout is suggested by the fact that the front branch of the maxilla was short. In the depression around the antorbital fenestra to the front, a smaller non-piercing hollowing can be seen that is probably homologous to the fenestra maxillaris . The maxilla bears 13 teeth. The teeth are relatively large, with

4658-609: Is now Europe during the Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic (~166-168 million years ago). Repeated descriptions during the nineteenth and early twentieth century of Megalosaurus hunting Iguanodon (another of the earliest dinosaurs named) through the forests that then covered the continent are now known to be inaccurate, because Iguanodon skeletons are found in much younger Early Cretaceous formations. The only specimens belonging to Megalosaurus bucklandii are from

4795-569: Is relatively straight, slightly curving inwards. To below, its shaft progressively flattens from front to rear, resulting in a generally oval cross-section. For about an eighth of its length the front lower end of the shaft is covered by a vertical branch of the astragalus . Of the foot, only the second, third and fourth metatarsals are known, the bone elements that were connected to the three weight-bearing toes. They are straight and robust, showing ligament pits at their lower sides. The third metatarsal has no clear condyles at its lower end, resulting in

4932-444: Is relatively wide and separated from the robust lesser trochanter in front of it, by a fissure. At the front base of the lesser trochanter a low accessory trochanter is present. At the lower end of the thigh bone a distinct front, extensor, groove separates the condyles . At the upper inner side of this groove a rough area is present continuing inwards into a longitudinal ridge, a typical megalosauroid trait. The shinbone , or tibia ,

5069-679: The Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about

5206-606: The Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as a separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek

5343-552: The French comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier visited Buckland in Oxford and realised that they were those of a giant lizard -like creature. Buckland further studied the remains with his friend William Conybeare who in 1821 referred to them as the "Huge Lizard". In 1822 Buckland and Conybeare, in a joint article to be included in Cuvier's Ossemens , intended to provide scientific names for both gigantic lizard-like creatures known at

5480-623: The Geological Society of London in which Conybeare described a very complete specimen of Plesiosaurus , Buckland formally announced Megalosaurus . The descriptions of the bones in the Transactions of the Geological Society , in 1824, constitute a valid publication of the name. Megalosaurus was the first non-avian dinosaur genus named; the first of which the remains had with certainty been scientifically described

5617-501: The Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

Megalosaurus - Misplaced Pages Continue

5754-603: The epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between

5891-419: The epicondyle . The medial epicondyle is a large convex eminence to which the tibial collateral ligament of the knee-joint is attached. At its upper part is the adductor tubercle and behind it is a rough impression which gives origin to the medial head of the gastrocnemius . The lateral epicondyle which is smaller and less prominent than the medial, gives attachment to the fibular collateral ligament of

6028-401: The intertrochanteric crest on the back side and by the intertrochanteric line on the front. A slight ridge is sometimes seen commencing about the middle of the intertrochanteric crest, and reaching vertically downward for about 5 cm. along the back part of the body: it is called the linea quadrata (or quadrate line). About the junction of the upper one-third and lower two-thirds on

6165-461: The knee-joint . The femur develops from the limb buds as a result of interactions between the ectoderm and the underlying mesoderm ; formation occurs roughly around the fourth week of development. By the sixth week of development, the first hyaline cartilage model of the femur is formed by chondrocytes . Endochondral ossification begins by the end of the embryonic period and primary ossification centers are present in all long bones of

6302-402: The nasal bone . Such a level of pneumatisation of the jugal is not known from other megalosaurids and might represent a separate autapomorphy . The lower jaw is rather robust. It is also straight in top view, without much expansion at the jaw tip, suggesting the lower jaws as a pair, the mandibula , were narrow. Several traits in 2008 identified as autapomorphies, later transpired to have been

6439-529: The pelvis and hindlimbs . Vertebrae and skull bones are rare. In 2010, Roger Benson counted a total of 103 specimens from the Stonesfield Slate, from a minimum of seven individuals. It has been contentious whether this material represents just a single taxon . In 2004, Julia Day and Paul Barrett claimed that there were two morphotypes present, based on small differences in the thighbones. In 2008 Benson favoured this idea, but in 2010 concluded

6576-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

6713-408: The thigh laterally rotated, the head of the femur can be felt deep as a resistance profound (deep) for the femoral artery . The transition area between the head and neck is quite rough due to attachment of muscles and the hip joint capsule . Here the two trochanters , greater and lesser trochanter , are found. The greater trochanter is almost box-shaped and is the most lateral prominent of

6850-573: The third trochanter are present in mammals, including some primates. Some species of whales , snakes , and other non-walking vertebrates have vestigial femurs. In some snakes the protruding end of a pelvic spur , a vestigial pelvis and femur remnant which is not connected to the rest of the skeleton, plays a role in mating. This role in mating is hypothesized to have possibly occurred in Basilosauridae , an extinct family of whales with well-defined femurs, lower legs and feet. Occasionally,

6987-421: The "lizard model" was entirely abandoned: they would have had an upright stance and a high metabolism. This also meant that earlier size estimates had been exaggerated. By simply adding the known length of the vertebrae, instead of extrapolating from a lizard, Owen arrived at a total body length for Megalosaurus of 30 feet. In the printed version of the lecture published in 1842, Owen united the three reptiles into

SECTION 50

#1732798825869

7124-463: The 20th century after many other dinosaurs had been discovered. Today it is understood that none of these additional species was directly related to M. bucklandii , which is the only true Megalosaurus species. Because a complete skeleton of it has never been found, much is still unclear about its build. The first naturalists who investigated Megalosaurus mistook it for a gigantic lizard 20 metres (66 ft) in length. In 1842, Owen concluded that it

7261-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

7398-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

7535-660: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs,   Femur The top of the femur fits into a socket in the pelvis called the hip joint, and the bottom of the femur connects to the shinbone ( tibia ) and kneecap ( patella ) to form

7672-545: The Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for

7809-522: The ICZN states that if a name has never been considered valid after 1899, it can be made a nomen oblitum , an invalid "forgotten name". In 1993, after the death of Halstead, his friend William A.S. Sarjeant submitted a petition to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to formally suppress the name Scrotum in favour of Megalosaurus . He wrote that the supposed junior synonym Megalosaurus bucklandii should be made

7946-805: The Lower/Middle Bathonian of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. No material from outside the Bathonian formations of England can be referred to Megalosaurus . Other roughly contemporaneous dinosaur species known from the Bathonian of Britain include the theropods Cruxicheiros (a large sized taxon), Iliosuchus (a dubious taxon only known from fragmentary remains), the small tyrannosauroid Proceratosaurus , and other indeterminate theropods known from teeth, suggested to include dromaeosaurs , troodontids , and therizinosaurs , indeterminate ornithischians primarily known from teeth, including heterodontosaurids , stegosaurs , and ankylosaurs , and

8083-508: The Stonesfield Slate fossils perhaps belonged to several, possibly not directly related, species of theropod dinosaur. Subsequent research seemed to confirm this hypothesis, and the genus Megalosaurus and species M. bucklandii became generally regarded as limited to the taxon having produced the lectotype, the dentary of the lower jaw. Furthermore, several researchers failed to find any characteristics in that jaw that could be used to distinguish Megalosaurus from its relatives, which would mean

8220-678: The Taynton Limestone Formation, dating to the mid- Bathonian stage of the Jurassic Period. The bones were apparently acquired by William Buckland , Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford and dean of Christ Church . Buckland also studied a lower jaw, according to Gunther the one bought by Pegge. Buckland did not know to what animal the bones belonged but, in 1818, after the Napoleonic Wars ,

8357-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

SECTION 60

#1732798825869

8494-485: The attachment of the Musculus caudofemoralis brevis . The outer side of the rear blade does not match the inner side, which thus can be seen as a separate "medial blade" that in side view is visible in two places: in the corner between outer side and the ischial peduncle and as a small surface behind the extreme rear tip of the outer side of the rear blade. The pubic bone is straight. The pubic bones of both pelvis halves are connected via narrow bony skirts that originated at

8631-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

8768-425: The blade surface. The middle front edge over about 30% of its length is thinned, forming a slightly protruding crest. The scapula constitutes about half of the shoulder joint, which is orientated obliquely sideways and to below. The coracoid is in all known specimens fused with the scapula into a scapulocoracoid , lacking a visible suture . The coracoid as such is an oval bone plate, with its longest side attached to

8905-566: The centrum is strongly concave. The neck ribs are short. The front dorsal vertebrae are slightly opisthocoelous , with convex front centrum facets and concave rear centrum facets. They are also deeply keeled, with the ridge on the underside representing about 50% of the total centrum height. The front dorsals perhaps have a pleurocoel above the diapophysis , the lower rib joint process. The rear dorsal vertebrae, according to Benson, are not pneumatised. They are slightly amphicoelous, with hollow centrum facets. They have secondary joint processes, forming

9042-680: The concept of the transmutation of species as part of a general progressive development through time, as expressed in the work of Robert Chambers . In reaction, on 2 August 1841 Richard Owen during a lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science claimed that certain prehistoric reptilian groups had already attained the organisational level of present mammals, implying there had been no progress. Owen presented three examples of such higher level reptiles: Iguanodon , Hylaeosaurus and Megalosaurus . For these,

9179-415: The condition genu valgum (knock knee) the femurs converge so much that the knees touch one another. The opposite extreme is genu varum (bow-leggedness) . In the general population of people without either genu valgum or genu varum , the femoral-tibial angle is about 175 degrees. The femur is the largest and thickest bone in the human body. By some tested measures, it is also the strongest bone in

9316-417: The creature was 40 feet long and eight feet high. It is generally considered that the name in 1822 was still a nomen nudum ("naked name"). Buckland, urged on by an impatient Cuvier, continued to work on the subject during 1823, letting his later wife Mary Morland provide drawings of the bones, that were to be the basis of illustrating lithographies . Finally, on 20 February 1824, during the same meeting of

9453-419: The details of its physical appearance cannot be certain. However, a full osteology of all known material was published in 2010 by Benson. Traditionally, most texts, following Owen's estimate of 1841, give a body length of 30 feet or nine metres for Megalosaurus . The lack of an articulated dorsal vertebral series makes it difficult to determine an exact size. David Bruce Norman in 1984 thought Megalosaurus

9590-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

9727-530: The dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under

9864-605: The differences were illusory. A maxilla fragment, specimen OUM J13506, was, in 1869 assigned, by Thomas Huxley , to M. bucklandii . In 1992 Robert Thomas Bakker claimed it represented a member of the Sinraptoridae ; in 2007, Darren Naish thought it was a separate species belonging to the Abelisauroidea . In 2010, Benson pointed out that the fragment was basically indistinguishable from other known M. bucklandii maxillae, to which it had in fact not been compared by

10001-510: The divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at

10138-412: The effects of allometry , heavier animals having relatively stouter bones, Buckland was forced in the printed version of his lecture to estimate the maximum length of Megalosaurus at 60 to 70 feet. The existence of Megalosaurus posed some problems for Christian orthodoxy , which typically held that suffering and death had only come into the world through Original Sin , which seemed irreconcilable with

10275-415: The femur (or distal extremity) is the thickest femoral extremity, the upper extremity is the shortest femoral extremity. It is somewhat cuboid in form, but its transverse diameter is greater than its antero-posterior (front to back). It consists of two oblong eminences known as the condyles . Anteriorly, the condyles are slightly prominent and are separated by a smooth shallow articular depression called

10412-410: The femur (or shaft) is large, thick and almost cylindrical in form. It is a little broader above than in the center, broadest and somewhat flattened from before backward below. It is slightly arched, so as to be convex in front, and concave behind, where it is strengthened by a prominent longitudinal ridge, the linea aspera which diverges proximally and distal as the medial and lateral ridge. Proximally

10549-441: The femur , which articulates with the acetabulum of the pelvic bone , comprises two-thirds of a sphere . It has a small groove, or fovea , connected through the round ligament to the sides of the acetabular notch . The head of the femur is connected to the shaft through the neck or collum . The neck is 4–5 cm. long and the diameter is smallest front to back and compressed at its middle. The collum forms an angle with

10686-405: The femur occupies the anterior, inferior, and posterior surfaces of the condyles. Its front part is named the patellar surface and articulates with the patella ; it presents a median groove which extends downward to the intercondyloid fossa and two convexities, the lateral of which is broader, more prominent, and extends farther upward than the medial. Each condyle is surmounted by an elevation,

10823-417: The femur. In all, 23 individual muscles either originate from or insert onto the femur. In cross-section, the thigh is divided up into three separate fascial compartments divided by fascia , each containing muscles. These compartments use the femur as an axis, and are separated by tough connective tissue membranes (or septa ). Each of these compartments has its own blood and nerve supply, and contains

10960-443: The femur. The highest point of the greater trochanter is located higher than the collum and reaches the midpoint of the hip joint . The greater trochanter can easily be felt. The trochanteric fossa is a deep depression bounded posteriorly by the intertrochanteric crest on the medial surface of the greater trochanter. The lesser trochanter is a cone-shaped extension of the lowest part of the femur neck. The two trochanters are joined by

11097-574: The first non avian dinosaur to be described in the scientific literature. The earliest possible fossil of the genus, from the Taynton Limestone Formation , was the lower part of a femur , discovered in the 17th century. It was originally described by Robert Plot as a thigh bone of a Roman war elephant , and then as a biblical giant. Part of a bone was recovered from the Taynton Limestone Formation of Stonesfield limestone quarry, Oxfordshire in 1676. Sir Thomas Pennyson gave

11234-551: The first three genera placed in the Dinosauria . In 1850, Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte coined a separate family Megalosauridae with Megalosaurus as the type genus . For a long time, the precise relationships of Megalosaurus remained vague. It was seen as a "primitive" member of the Carnosauria , the group in which most large theropods were united. In the late 20th century the new method of cladistics allowed for

11371-585: The first time to exactly calculate how closely various taxa were related to each other. In 2012, Matthew Carrano et al. showed that Megalosaurus was the sister species of Torvosaurus within the Megalosaurinae , giving this cladogram : Piatnitzkysauridae Streptospondylus Spinosauridae Eustreptospondylus Duriavenator Megalosaurus Torvosaurus Afrovenator Dubreuillosaurus Magnosaurus Leshansaurus Piveteausaurus Megalosaurus lived in what

11508-460: The flesh of its prey. The skeleton of Megalosaurus is highly ossified, indicating a robust and muscular animal, though the lower leg was not as heavily built as that of Torvosaurus , a close relative. The skull of Megalosaurus is poorly known. The discovered skull elements are generally rather large in relation to the rest of the material. This can either be coincidental or indicate that Megalosaurus had an uncommonly large head. The praemaxilla

11645-410: The form Megalosaurus bucklandi was often used, a variant first published in 1832 by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer – and sometimes erroneously ascribed to von Ritgen – but the more original M. bucklandii has priority. The first reconstruction was given by Buckland himself. He considered Megalosaurus to be a quadruped. He thought it was an "amphibian", i.e. an animal capable of both swimming in

11782-538: The fragment to Robert Plot , Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum , who published a description and illustration in his Natural History of Oxfordshire in 1676. It was the first illustration of a dinosaur bone published. Plot correctly identified the bone as the lower extremity of the thighbone or femur of a large animal and he recognised that it

11919-596: The genes that code for longer extremities cause a modern whale to develop miniature legs ( atavism ). One of the earliest known vertebrates to have a femur is the Eusthenopteron , a prehistoric lobe-finned fish from the Late Devonian period. A recent study revealed that bone is a much richer source of persistent DNA viruses than earlier perceived. Besides Parvovirus 19 and hepatitis B virus, ten additional ones were discovered, namely several members of

12056-404: The genus were a nomen dubium . However, a comprehensive study by Roger Benson and colleagues in 2008, and several related analyses published in subsequent years, overturned the previous consensus by identifying several autapomorphies , or unique distinguishing characteristics, in the lower jaw that could be used to separate Megalosaurus from other megalosaurids. Various distinguishing traits of

12193-447: The herpes- and polyomavirus families, as well as human papillomavirus 31 and torque teno virus. In invertebrate zoology the name femur appears in arthropodology . The usage is not homologous with that of vertebrate anatomy; the term "femur" simply has been adopted by analogy and refers, where applicable, to the most proximal of (usually) the two longest jointed segments of the legs of the arthropoda . The two basal segments preceding

12330-416: The human body, whereas other strength tests show the temporal bone to be the strongest bone. The femur length on average is 26.74% of a person's height, a ratio found in both men and women and most ethnic groups with only restricted variation, and is useful in anthropology because it offers a basis for a reasonable estimate of a subject's height from an incomplete skeleton . The femur is categorised as

12467-398: The inner rear side of the shaft, covering over half of its length. Towards the end of the shaft, this skirt gradually merges with it. The shaft eventually ends in a sizeable "foot" with a convex lower profile. The thigh bone is straight in front view. Seen from the same direction its head is perpendicular to the shaft, seen from above it is orientated 20° to the front. The greater trochanter

12604-435: The intertrochanteric crest is the quadrate tubercle located. The size of the tubercle varies and it is not always located on the intertrochanteric crest and that also adjacent areas can be part of the quadrate tubercle, such as the posterior surface of the greater trochanter or the neck of the femur. In a small anatomical study it was shown that the epiphyseal line passes directly through the quadrate tubercle. The body of

12741-445: The knee. In humans the femur is the largest and thickest bone in the body. The femur is the only bone in the upper leg . The two femurs converge medially toward the knees , where they articulate with the proximal ends of the tibiae . The angle of convergence of the femora is a major factor in determining the femoral-tibial angle . Human females have thicker pelvic bones , causing their femora to converge more than in males. In

12878-454: The large sauropod Cetiosaurus . In 1699, Edward Lhuyd described what he believed to have been a fish tooth (called Plectronites ), later believed to be part of a belemnite , that was illustrated alongside the holotype tooth of the sauropod " Rutellum impicatum" and another tooth, from a theropod , in 1699. Later studies found that the theropod tooth, known as specimen 1328 ( University of Oxford coll. #1328; lost?) almost certainly

13015-413: The late Middle Jurassic . The earliest remains of Megalosaurus were described in the 17th century, and were initially interpreted as the remains of elephants or giants. Megalosaurus was named in 1824 by William Buckland , becoming the first genus of non-avian dinosaur to be validly named. The type species is M. bucklandii , named in 1827 by Gideon Mantell , after Buckland. In 1842, Megalosaurus

13152-421: The lateral ridge of the linea aspera becomes the gluteal tuberosity while the medial ridge continues as the pectineal line . Besides the linea aspera the shaft has two other bordes; a lateral and medial border . These three bordes separates the shaft into three surfaces: One anterior , one medial and one lateral. Due to the vast musculature of the thigh the shaft can not be palpated . The third trochanter

13289-415: The limbs, including the femur, by the 12th week of development. The hindlimb development lags behind forelimb development by 1–2 days. As the femur is the only bone in the thigh, it serves as an attachment point for all the muscles that exert their force over the hip and knee joints. Some biarticular muscles – which cross two joints, like the gastrocnemius and plantaris muscles – also originate from

13426-427: The lower jaw have been established. The longitudinal groove on the outer surface of the dentary is wide. The third tooth socket of the dentary is not enlarged. Seen from above, the dentary is straight without an expanded jaw tip. The interdental plates, reinforcing the teeth from behind, of the lower jaw are tall. Benson also concluded it would be most parsimonious to assume that the Stonesfield Slate material represents

13563-422: The maxilla are vertically grooved; the same combination is shown by Piatnitzkysaurus . The surangular has no bony shelf, or even ridge, on its outer side. There is laterally an oval opening present in front of the jaw joint, a foramen surangulare posterior , but a second foramen surangulare anterior to the front of it is lacking. Although the exact numbers are unknown, the vertebral column of Megalosaurus

13700-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

13837-510: The organism as being a giant animal belonging to the Sauria – the Lizards, at the time seen as including the crocodiles – and he placed it in the new genus Megalosaurus , repeating an estimate by Cuvier that the largest pieces he described, indicated an animal 12 metres long in life. Buckland had not provided a specific name , as was not uncommon in the early nineteenth century, when the genus

13974-482: The other authors. Apart from the finds in the Taynton Limestone Formation , in 1939 Sidney Hugh Reynolds referred remains to Megalosaurus that had been found in the older Chipping Norton Limestone Formation dating from the early Bathonian , about 30 single teeth and bones. Though the age disparity makes it problematic to assume an identity with Megalosaurus bucklandii , in 2009 Benson could not establish any relevant anatomical differences with M. bucklandii among

14111-463: The patellar surface. Posteriorly, they project considerably and a deep notch, the Intercondylar fossa of femur , is present between them. The lateral condyle is the more prominent and is the broader both in its antero-posterior and transverse diameters. The medial condyle is the longer and, when the femur is held with its body perpendicular, projects to a lower level. When, however, the femur

14248-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

14385-569: The possible type specimen of a new biological genus. According to the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the name Scrotum humanum in principle had priority over Megalosaurus because it was published first. That Brookes understood that the stone did not actually represent a pair of petrified testicles was irrelevant. Merely the fact that the name had not been used in subsequent literature meant that it could be removed from competition for priority, because

14522-550: The presence of a gigantic devouring reptile during a pre-Adamitic phase of history. Buckland rejected the usual solution, that such carnivores would originally have been peaceful vegetarians, as infantile and claimed in one of the Bridgewater Treatises that Megalosaurus had played a beneficial role in creation by ending the lives of old and ill animals, "to diminish the aggregate amount of animal suffering". Around 1840, it became fashionable in England to espouse

14659-468: The remains found at one site, the New Park Quarry, and therefore affirmed the reference to that species. However, in another site, the Oakham Quarry, the material contained one bone, an ilium, that was clearly dissimilar. Sometimes trace fossils have been referred to Megalosaurus or to the ichnogenus Megalosauripus . In 1997, a famous group of fossilised footprints ( ichnites ) was found in

14796-470: The remains present at Oxford. Buckland had also been hurried into naming his new reptile by a visit he had made to the fossil collection of Mantell, who during the lecture announced to have acquired a fossil thigh bone of enormous magnitude, twice as long as that just described. Today, this is known to have belonged to Iguanodon , or at least some iguanodontid , but at the time both men assumed this bone belonged to Megalosaurus also. Even taking into account

14933-487: The result of damage. However, a unique combination of traits is present in the wide longitudinal groove on the outer side (shared with Torvosaurus ), the small third dentary tooth and a vascular channel, below the row of interdental plates, that only is closed from the fifth tooth position onwards. The number of dentary teeth was probably 13 or 14, though the preserved damaged specimens show at most 11 tooth sockets. The interdental plates have smooth inner sides, whereas those of

15070-416: The sacral vertebrae are rounded but the second sacral is keeled; normally it is the third or fourth sacral having a ridge. The sacral vertebrae seem not to be pneumatised but have excavations at their sides. The tail vertebrae are slightly amphicoelous, with hollow centrum facets on both the front and rear side. They have excavations at their sides and a longitudinal groove on the underside. The neural spines of

15207-435: The same year Benson claimed that Megalosaurus , though medium-sized, was still among the largest of Middle Jurassic theropods. Specimen NHMUK PV OR 31806, a thigh bone 803 millimetres long, would indicate a body weight of 943 kilogrammes, using the extrapolation method of J.F. Anderson — which method, optimised for mammals, tends to underestimate theropod masses by at least a third. Furthermore, thigh bone specimen OUM J13561 has

15344-501: The sauropods Cardiodon (only known from teeth) and Cetiosaurus . Megalosaurus may have hunted stegosaurs and sauropods. Ancient Greek Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ),

15481-427: The scapula. It is pierced by a large oval foramen but the usual boss for the attachment of the upper arm muscles is lacking. The humerus is very robust with strongly expanded upper and lower ends. Humerus specimen OUMNH J.13575 has a length of 388 millimetres. Its shaft circumference equals about half of the total humerus length. The humerus head continues to the front and the rear into large bosses, together forming

15618-435: The sea and walking on land. Generally, in his mind Megalosaurus resembled a gigantic lizard, but Buckland already understood from the form of the thigh bone head that the legs were not so much sprawling as held rather upright. In the original description of 1824, Buckland repeated Cuvier's size estimate that Megalosaurus would have been 40 feet long with the weight of a seven foot tall elephant. However, this had been based on

15755-399: The shaft in about 130 degrees. This angle is highly variant. In the infant it is about 150 degrees and in old age reduced to 120 degrees on average. An abnormal increase in the angle is known as coxa valga and an abnormal reduction is called coxa vara . Both the head and neck of the femur is vastly embedded in the hip musculature and can not be directly palpated . In skinny people with

15892-522: The similarity of Scrotum humanum to a modern species name, a so-called Linnaean " binomen " that has two parts, was not a coincidence. Linnaeus , the founder of modern taxonomy , had in the eighteenth century not merely devised a system for naming living creatures, but also for classifying geological objects. The book by Brookes was all about applying this latter system to curious stones found in England. According to Halstead, Brookes thus had deliberately used binomial nomenclature , and had in fact indicated

16029-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

16166-461: The tail basis are transversely thin and tall, representing more than half of the total vertebral height. The shoulderblade or scapula is short and wide, its length about 6.8 times the minimum width; this is a rare and basal trait within Tetanurae. Its top curves slightly to the rear in side view. On the lower outer side of the blade a broad ridge is present, running from just below the shoulder joint to about mid-length where it gradually merges with

16303-467: The time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with

16440-458: The time: the remains found near Maastricht would be named Mosasaurus – then seen as a land-dwelling animal – while for the British lizard Conybeare had devised the name "Megalosaurus", from the Greek μέγας, megas , "large". That year a publication failed to occur, but the physician James Parkinson already in 1822 announced the name "Megalosaurus", illustrating one of the teeth and revealing

16577-582: The tracks show no traits unique to Megalosaurus . Certainly they should be limited to finds that are of the same age as Megalosaurus bucklandii . Finds from sites outside England, especially in France, have in the nineteenth and twentieth century been referred to M. bucklandii . In 2010 Benson considered these as either clearly different or too fragmentary to establish an identity. Since the first finds, many other Megalosaurus bones have been recovered; however, no complete skeleton has yet been found. Therefore,

16714-408: The type specimen on which the name is based. In 1990, Ralph Molnar chose the famous dentary (front part of the lower jaw), OUM J13505 , as such a lectotype . Because he was unaccustomed to the deep dinosaurian pelvis, much taller than with typical reptiles, Buckland misidentified several bones, interpreting the pubic bone as a fibula and mistaking the ischium for a clavicle . Buckland identified

16851-415: The use of a traction splint . In primitive tetrapods, the main points of muscle attachment along the femur are the internal trochanter and third trochanter , and a ridge along the ventral surface of the femoral shaft referred to as the adductor crest . The neck of the femur is generally minimal or absent in the most primitive forms, reflecting a simple attachment to the acetabulum. The greater trochanter

16988-414: Was Streptospondylus , in 1808 by Cuvier. By 1824, the material available to Buckland consisted of specimen OUM J13505, a piece of a right lower jaw with a single erupted tooth; OUM J13577, a posterior dorsal vertebra ; OUM J13579, an anterior caudal vertebra; OUM J13576, a sacrum of five sacral vertebrae; OUM J13585, a cervical rib; OUM J13580, a rib; OUM J29881, an ilium of the pelvis , OUM J13563,

17125-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

17262-452: Was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in

17399-478: Was a tooth crown that belonged to an unknown species of Megalosaurus . OU 1328 has since been lost and it was not confidently assigned to Megalosaurus until the tooth was re-described by Delair & Sarjeant (2002). OU 1328 was collected near Caswell, near Witney , Oxfordshire sometime during the 17th century and became the third dinosaur fossil to ever be illustrated, after "Scrotum humanum" in 1677 and "Rutellum impicatum" in 1699. Megalosaurus may have been

17536-401: Was first challenged by the find of Compsognathus in 1859. That, however, was a very small animal, the significance of which for gigantic forms could be denied. In 1870, near Oxford, the type specimen of Eustreptospondylus was discovered – the first reasonably intact skeleton of a large theropod. It was clearly bipedal. Shortly afterwards, John Phillips created the first public display of

17673-528: Was given the very first species name ever applied to an extinct dinosaur. Plot's engraving of the Cornwell bone was again used in a book by Richard Brookes in 1763. Brookes, in a caption, called it " Scrotum humanum", apparently comparing its appearance to a pair of "human testicles ". However, it is possible that the attribution of this name stemmed from illustrator error, not Richard Brookes. In 1970, paleontologist Lambert Beverly Halstead pointed out that

17810-467: Was no longer than 9 metres (30 ft). He still thought it was a quadruped, though. Modern scientists were able to obtain a more accurate picture, by comparing Megalosaurus with its direct relatives in the Megalosauridae . Megalosaurus was about 6 metres (20 ft) long, weighing about 700 kilograms (1,500 lb). It was bipedal, walking on stout hindlimbs, its horizontal torso balanced by

17947-477: Was one of three genera on which Richard Owen based his Dinosauria . On Owen's directions a model was made as one of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs , which greatly increased the public interest for prehistoric reptiles. Over 50 other species would eventually be classified under the genus; at first, this was because so few types of dinosaur had been identified, but the practice continued even into

18084-410: Was present in the extinct archosaurs , as well as in modern birds and mammals, being associated with the loss of the primitive sprawling gait. The lesser trochanter is a unique development of mammals, which lack both the internal and fourth trochanters. The adductor crest is also often absent in mammals or alternatively reduced to a series of creases along the surface of the bone. Structures analogous to

18221-503: Was probably divided into 10 neck vertebrae, 13 dorsal vertebrae, five sacral vertebrae and 50 to 60 tail vertebrae, as is common for basal Tetanurae . The Stonesfield Slate material contains no neck vertebrae; but a single broken anterior cervical vertebra is known from the New Park Quarry, specimen NHMUK PV R9674. The breakage reveals large internal air chambers. The vertebra is also otherwise heavily pneumatised, with large pleurocoels , pneumatic excavations, on its sides. The rear facet of

18358-431: Was seven to eight metres long. Gregory S. Paul in 1988 estimated the weight tentatively at 1.1 tonnes, given a thigh bone 76 centimetres long. The trend in the early twenty-first century to limit the material to the lectotype inspired even lower estimates, disregarding outliers of uncertain identity. Paul in 2010 estimated the size of Megalosaurus at 6 metres (20 ft) in length and 700 kilograms (1,500 lb). However,

18495-448: Was still seen as the more essential concept. In 1826, Ferdinand von Ritgen gave this dinosaur a complete binomial, Megalosaurus conybeari , which however was not much used by later authors and is now considered a nomen oblitum . A year later, in 1827, Gideon Mantell included Megalosaurus in his geological survey of southeastern England, and assigned the species its current valid binomial name, Megalosaurus bucklandii . Until recently,

18632-418: Was too incomplete to definitely be referred to Megalosaurus and not a different, contemporary theropod. During the last part of the eighteenth century, the number of fossils in British collections quickly increased. According to a hypothesis published by science historian Robert Gunther in 1925, among them was a partial lower jaw of Megalosaurus . It was discovered about 40 feet (12 m) underground in

18769-471: Was too large to belong to any species known to be living in England. He therefore at first concluded it to be the thigh bone of a Roman war elephant and later that of a giant human, such as those mentioned in the Bible. The bone has since been lost, but the illustration is detailed enough that some have since identified it as that of Megalosaurus . It has also been argued that this possible Megalosaurus bone

#868131