The UK has a long history with dinosaurs. As well as being the home of more than 100 diverse species millions of years ago, it’s also the place where they were first formally discovered and officially named ‘dinosaurs’, or ‘terrible lizards’.
Dinosaurs that once lived in the UK
Megalosaurus
While it may have lived during the Middle Jurassic (165 million years ago) and midway through the time of the dinosaurs, Megalosaurus was actually the first of its kind recognised by palaeontologists and one of three species upon which the entire group Dinosauria is based. Standing 3m tall, measuring 9m in length, and weighing in at 700kg, it was one of the largest predators to ever stalk our shores - though not quite the largest.
Baryonyx
A close relative of the enigmatic Spinosaurus, Baryonyx is another bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur with a particular taste for fish. This 2.5m-tall, crocodile-snouted superpredator was equipped with enormous, 30cm-long claws on each of its first fingers, which give it its name - ‘heavy claw’. The first recognised remains were discovered in 1983 in a clay pit in Surrey. This pit has yielded even more fossils, including crocodile teeth and part of an Iguanodon.
Iguanodon
This 4.5-ton, plant-eating machine was the second dinosaur formally discovered, after Megalosaurus. It’s one of the most recognisable dinosaurs today, not only because of its appearance as the protagonist in Disney’s Dinosaur, but also because of its distinctive thumb spike. Originally mistaken as a horn and placed on its nose, this 30cm-long spike was later placed on the animal’s hand and reinterpreted as a close-quarters, shiv-like weapon.
Hypsilophodon
The Isle of Wight has been the site of a lot of dinosaur discoveries; approximately 25% of species recognised from the UK come from this tiny island just south of Portsmouth. The German Shepherd-sized, plant-eating Hypsilophodon is one of the Isle of Wight’s most well-known species, thanks to a glut of more than 100 specimens (representing about 20 individuals) found in a one-metre thick, 1200m-long strip of carbonate rock found on the island’s southwest coast.
Hylaeosaurus
Along with Megalosaurus and Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus informed the original description of Dinosauria by Richard Owen, way back in 1842. It’s only known from scant remains, but based on these it has been assigned to a family of heavily-armoured, lumbering tanks known as ankylosaurids. As an early member of this family, Hylaeosaurus didn’t possess a characteristic tail club. However, it did have a series of spikes jutting out of its neck that would have protected it from predators.
Neovenator
The UK’s answer to T.rex, Neovenator was a similarly ferocious, bipedal theropod that, while half the size of the ‘tyrant lizard king’, played a similar role as an apex predator. Like other carcharodontosaurids, Neovenator had a relatively slender build and a narrow skull full of blade-like teeth. It was clearly built for a life in the fast lane, as suggested by the type specimen, which shows evidence of many healed fractures across its skeleton.
The “White Rock” Spinosaurid
In 2022, the remains of a so-far-unnamed, Spinosaurus-like dinosaur were unveiled to the world. These remains were found on the Isle of Wight and paint a picture of an animal that may have exceeded 10m in length. If these estimates are correct, and the remains represent a new species, then it’d be the largest terrestrial predator ever discovered in Europe. This mysterious dinosaur lived during a time when much of the Isle of Wight was covered in lagoonal waters and sandflats.
