28 Days Of Dinosauria - 26

Day 26: The first dinosaur known to science, Megalosaurus bucklandii is named for William Buckland, a churchman who devoted his spare time to studying natural history and geology. In the frontier of palaeontology, he was one of the very first to try to make sense of the giant bones that were being discovered, with the result that his idea of what Megalosaurus looked like bares little resemblance to the modern view! He saw it as a scaled-up version of extant reptiles, walking on all fours, with a sprawling gait. We now know it to have been a biped, with a similar basic form to the other carnivorous theropods.

From the mid-Jurassic (c. 165 million years ago), it lived in Europe, with the best specimens found in Oxfordshire. The very earliest examples were found in the 17th century, long before anybody had any idea what they were, and consequently the first recorded name assigned to a dinosaur bone, part of a Megalosaurus femur, was somewhat infamously Scrotum humanum, as it looked a bit like a petrified scrotum. Technically speaking, since zoology always recognises the oldest name as the official one, that is what Megalosaurus ought to be known as today, but the rules have been politely ignored!

Scrotum humanum. Not the world's best ever dinosaur name. Still, you can see their point.