The lizard-like creature skulking on the far shore above is the earliest
known representation of a dinosaur 鈥� a Megalosaurus 鈥� in its natural surroundings.
It appeared before the word 鈥榙inosaur鈥�, 150 years old this year, had even
been coined. The engraving appeared in the delightful Penny Magazine of
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in October 1833. The
palaeontologist Richard Owen invented the term 鈥榙inosaur鈥� eight years later.
The Megalosaurus was one of the 鈥榞reat lizards鈥� discovered by William
Buckland, an Anglican cleric who in his Relics of the Deluge (1823) tried
to reconcile his discoveries with the biblical flood. The engraving also
depicts an ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur and, in the air, what the magazine
refers to as 鈥榖ird-like bats鈥�.
