History of Dinosaur Hunting

The Dinosaur Hunters

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Arthur Lakes Discovery

Robert Plot

Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University. He was also the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Published ‘The Natural History of Oxfordshire’ in 1677, which included a picture of a large (dinosaur) bone. Plot knew that it was part of a thigh bone from just above the knee joint, but nobody knew what kind of animal it could have come from. Plot thought it a giant human, some believed it belonged to an elephant brought over by the Romans.

plot.jpg

It was later named by R. Brookes, in 1763, as Scrotum humanum. More bones of this type were found in the area later, and in 1824 Buckland named the creature Megalosaurus. The specimen has since been lost.