Explore the scene given in this illustration above and learn about some of the plants and animals that were found in this environment about 168 million years ago.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > look at the graph analysis</h1>
A and B: More than 200 separate pterosaur skeletons have been found in the Taiyington Limestone Formation (commonly referred to as: Stonesfield Slate) in the United Kingdom. Most of the remains belong to the beaked pterosaur family, mainly small pterosaurs with sharp teeth and long tails.
pterosaur
According to a recent study, the Stonesfield slate in Oxfordshire, England, is more diverse than previously thought, including possibly the earliest known pterosaur fossils.
Pterodactyls had shorter tails, and by the late Cretaceous period, they had no teeth. These include the Aeolian Pterodactyl, one of the largest flying animals ever built, with wingspans of up to 11 meters.
C: Dragonflies during the Jurassic period were larger than their current relatives, probably because food competition and predation pressure from flying vertebrates (birds and pterosaurs) were both smaller than they are today. It is estimated that the forewing length of the giant dragonfly found in the Stonesfield Slate is 12 cm long and the total wingspan is about 25 cm.
dragonfly
D: Phascolotherium was one of the first mammals to be discovered in the Mesozoic Era, known as the Reptile Age. Mesozoic mammals were about the size of today's shrews or mice, with the largest being about the size of badgers.
Most of them, such as the Phashenate, may be nocturnal, foraging at night, such as eating insects. It wasn't until the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago that mammals evolved larger sizes.
Phascolotherium
In 1824, William Buckland first reported the presence of a mammalian jaw in Stonefield, and at the same time, he announced the discovery of a spotted dragon. These specimens caused a great sensation among paleontologists at the time, because no one expected to find mammals in such ancient rocks.
It took at least 20 years for Stonesfield's jaws to be considered mammals, and some believe they must belong to reptiles or fish. Because of these differences, they have been the focus of academic controversy.
E: The spotted dragon was a 9-meter-long carnivore weighing 1.4 tons. It belongs to the theropod suborder, and birds evolved from dinosaurs. Thanks to the discovery of unusually well-preserved fossils with feather marks, we now know that many dinosaurs had feathers and feather-like filaments even before the origin of birds.
megalosaurus
One such fossil is a juvenile theropod dinosaur-like squirrel dragon from the late Jurassic period in Germany, 150 million years ago, with silky feathers preserved on its tail and body. This makes it look a bit like a squirrel, hence the name, meaning "animal that imitates a squirrel". Squirrel-like dragons are a genus belonging to the superfamily " " Anderson " , closely related to " Zebraosaurus " . Although we do not have any direct evidence that " Zebra " had feathery filaments , its close association with " Squirrel-like " means it probably may have.
F: Araucaria-like plants are tall coniferous trees that belong to the same family as the Chilean Araucaria and are now grown in Chile and Argentina.
It resembles a plant of the genus Araucaria
It is thought that the diet of the long-necked sauropods may have been provided by plants resembling araucaria. Like the Chilean araucaria, its scaly leaves may have high energy but are difficult to digest.
G: In 1997, a large number of dinosaur footprints were found at the Adélie Quarry in Oxfordshire. They are thought to have formed when dinosaurs walked on the silt, which may have just emerged from the water or been slightly submerged. The three-toed large footprint with claw marks is thought to have been left by a spotted dragon.
The three-toed bigfoot of the spotted dragon
H: The Middle Jurassic Baton period in Oxfordshire is considered to be a low-lying coastal swamp, stream and lagoon, with a hot and humid climate. In addition to land animals, fossils of aquatic animals have been found, including fish, crocodiles, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, clams and crustaceans.
swamp
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > skeletal fossils and giant footprints</h1>
As shown in the image above: This is the world's first scientifically described dinosaur skull: fossilized skull remains of a spotted dragon.
Over the next 20 years, several more huge bones were found in Stonefield. In 1818, William Buckland, the first reader of geology at Oxford University, presented his research to georges Cuvier, a famous French anatomist.
The two scientists realized that the bones belonged to a giant lizardoid. In 1824, Buckland continued to describe the bones, naming them "Spotted Dragon", meaning "Great Lizard". The specimens on display at the museum include most of the materials he used in this pioneering work.
As shown in the image above: This right-sided tooth-like bone comes from the jaws of the "Stonefield Slate" (also known as the Taiyington Limestone Formation) in Stonefield, Oxfordshire.
Pictured above: This is a beautiful illustration by Mary Morland of the right tooth of the spotted dragon, along with an anatomical description made by William Buckland in 1824.
A series of footprints of a spotted dragon can be seen on the lawn in front of the museum. The 60-metre-long rail is made up of fossil molds of footprints found at the Adélie Quarry in Oxfordshire in 1997.
As shown in the image above: Footprints left by the spotted dragon can be found on the lawn outside the museum. The footprints are fossils of a huge footprint found in 1997 at the Adélie Limestone Quarry in Oxfordshire.
As shown in the image above: Footprints on the Ardley track can also be seen in the museum. This unique three-toed footprint suggests that it was left by a large theropod dinosaur, almost certainly a spotted dragon.
Spotted dragons aren't the only dinosaurs found in Oxfordshire. The museum's exhibits include 3 other species found in the area: Kumna, Ornithischiosaurus and Cetacean. All of these dinosaurs date back to the middle and late Jurassic period (about 170 million to 150 million years ago), when the climate was much warmer than in present-day Oxfordshire. In addition to the large dinosaurs, this land is also home to pterosaurs and small mammals.