William Buckland

English palaeontologist William Buckland wrote the first paper describing a dinosaur in 1824. The paper was on the fossil dinosaur of which he named the genus Megalosaurus. Buckland won the Copley Medal, a scientific award from the Royal Society of London, in 1822 for his research on a prehistoric hyena den found in Kirkdale Cave. He was a pioneer in fossil research and the study of ancient ecosystems.