In 1676, Robert Plot discovered a large bone in a quarry in Cornwall, England. He observed that the bone looked similar to a human femur, but it was much too large. Plot did not know what to make of this new discovery and thought it was possibly from an elephant. Many years later, in 1815, William Buckland
located fossils similar to the one Robert Plot discovered. Buckland named these fossils Megalosaurus, meaning large lizard, based on the jawbones and teeth
he observed. Buckland's discoveries were the first scientific evidence that dinosaurs existed in the past.
How did this new evidence change how scientists viewed organisms from the past?