Ever since human beings first lived on Earth they have been finding fossilized remains. But it was really only in the nineteenth century that scientific study of the fossils took place. Until then, people believed that the fossils came from dragons, giants or even unicorns!
Thanks to modern science, we know a lot about the dinosaurs that used to roam Earth. How do scientists know so much? It’s not like they can observe them in the wild like they do with modern animals. Instead, they rely upon what dinosaurs left behind. No, not their diaries! Scientists study their fossilized bones and, sometimes, other bodily material.
No one knows when the first dinosaur bone was found. Ancient peoples most likely uncovered fossils of dinosaur bones from time to time, but they had no idea what they had found. Ancient Chinese writings from over 2,000 years ago reference “dragon” bones, which many experts today believe had to be dinosaur fossils.
Even early scientists weren’t sure about the fossils they found. For example, in 1676, Reverend Robert Plot, a curator of an English museum, discovered a large thigh bone in England. He believed it belonged to ancient species of human “giants.” Although the specimen disappeared eventually, drawings of it remain. Based upon those drawings, modern scientists believe it was probably from a dinosaur known as “Megalosaurus.”
Megalosaurus is believed to be the first dinosaur ever described scientifically. British fossil hunter William Buckland found some fossils in 1819, and he eventually described them and named them in 1824. Like scientists before him, Buckland thought the fossils belonged to an ancient, larger version of a modern reptile.
As of that time, the word “dinosaur” still had not been invented yet, and dinosaurs hadn’t yet been recognized as distinct creatures that were significantly different than modern reptiles. All that changed when British scientist Richard Owen came along.
In late 1841 or early 1842, Owen viewed the fossil collection of William Devonshire Saul. He was intrigued by a fossilized chunk of spine, which was thought to belong to an ancient reptile similar to an iguana that had been called “Iguanodon.”
Owen began comparing the fossils he saw and, within a few months, came to two critical conclusions: (1) that the fossils were from similar creatures; and (2) these were creatures unlike anything on Earth today. He coined the term “dinosaurs,” which means “terrible lizards.”
Picture Credit : Google