Station: [3] The Plateosaurus

In 1834, just a few kilometres north-east of Nuremberg, local chemistry professor Johann Friedrich Engelhardt made a spectacular discovery. He found reptile bones indicative of an enormous animal. It was the first ever dinosaur find on German soil. Of course Engelhardt couldn’t have guessed it was a dinosaur, because this was before anyone came up with the word "dinosaur" – meaning "terrible lizard".

In geological terms, Engelhardt had actually discovered one of the earliest dinosaurs. The Plateosaurus appeared about 220 million years ago, during the Upper Triassic period, and was one of the first large dinosaurs. It lived in a landscape of plentiful red mud and dust. The deposits from this period are found in a rock formation known as the “Feuerletten”, fire clays. Despite these intermittent muddy desert conditions, there must also have been longish periods with sufficient vegetation to serve as a food base for entire groups of plateosaurs.

At first glance, the sharp teeth suggest that the plateosaurs may have been carnivores. But in fact, they were herbivores. However, unlike today's mammals, they didn’t chew their food. Instead, they tore it off and swallowed it with very little mastication. Which was rather an uneconomical way of utilising their food! But the dinosaurs didn’t require as much energy as most of today's herbivores. After all, they didn’t need to maintain a uniformly high body temperature.

Many scientists assume that plateosaurs were able to rear up on their hind legs to reach plants growing at higher levels.

The skeleton on display here at the museum wasn’t found in a complete state, or on a single occasion. Instead, it’s been reconstructed from various individual finds. As a result, we now have quite a substantial specimen of Plateosaurus standing in our stairwell.

Engelhardt's original finds from 1834 were evidently from a smaller specimen. They’re on display in the glass case opposite.