A specimen of Thecodontosaurus antiquus was discovered by excavators at a quarry in Bristol in 1834, and at the time was only the fourth dinosaur to be found anywhere in the world.
These remains were displayed in the Bristol City Museum but were mostly destroyed during second world war bombing raids. Further specimens of the same species were found in 1975 encased in rock at the nearby Tytherington quarry and became known as the "Bristol Dinosaur".
Until now the bones have been trapped in the limestone-like rock but, thanks to a £295,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, scientists will be able to extract and study the fossils for the first time.


"It's one of the most primitive plant-eating dinosaurs, at the base of the group that gave rise to the long-necked plant-eaters like brachiosaurus and diplodocus," said Mike Benton of the University of Bristol, who will lead the project. "Internationally, it's very important as one of the very earliest plant-eating dinosaurs. It was quite small, about a metre and a half in length and a great deal of that is a long, thin tail. It's a biped, about the height of a 10-year-old child."
The project will last three years and Benton hopes to reconstruct the complete skeleton of the dinosaur, which would have fed on the lush vegetation growing in the Bristol area during the Triassic period, hundreds of millions of years ago.
 
Palaeontology student Judyth Sassoon inspects the fossilised remains of the Bristol Dinosaur. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA


"The main aim is to establish the anatomy in detail of this beast because hitherto we've only looked at bits and pieces," said Benton. "The purpose of that is to discover what the very first plant-eating dinosaurs were like early in their evolution. It's part of the question of why were the dinosaurs so successful in their world. To understand that you need to go right back to the roots of the dinosaurs, the very earliest ones."

The scientists hope to raise further funds to build a permanent exhibit at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.

Nerys Watts, head of Heritage Lottery Fund South West, said: "The remains of the Bristol Dinosaur are of international scientific and heritage importance, offering a chance for us to further understand what our world was like 200 million years ago. Alongside the scientific research, this project will enable local people to learn about one of the city's most important but least well known residents."


Reposted from The Guardian