Replicating the magnificent Megalosaurus

31 JULY – 7 OCTOBER 2024 | PRESENTING CASE

This year marks the 200th anniversary of dinosaurs. In 1824, Oxford University professor William Buckland presented fossil bones of a huge prehistoric predator to a room full of scientists at the Geological Society of London (GSL). The fossils were given the name Megalosaurus, meaning ‘great lizard’. Amongst them was an iconic jawbone. Over the last 200 years, this fossil has been replicated using increasingly sophisticated techniques.

The earliest known replica is a plaster cast presented by Buckland to GSL in 1831. The labels reveal its history from Buckland’s 1824 paper, through acquisition by GSL, to the collections at the British Geological Survey. A more recent cast was made in Jesmonite acrylic resin and hand-painted in exquisite detail by Museum Conservator Juliet Hay.

While hand fabrication methods are still used, digital data offer another approach to replication. The partially-transparent jaw on display here was 3D-printed from CT scans that revealed a wealth of new scientific information. The second 3D-printed model used photogrammetry techniques to create the highest resolution digital surface render of the jawbone yet made.

Header image: Two replicas of the Megalosaurus jaw. Left, William Buckland's cast (1831). Right, 3D print using photogrammetry (2024).