Middle Jurassic in the context of "Great Oolite Group"

Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of Bath, England, its distinctive appearance. An important feature of Bath Stone is that it is a 'freestone', so-called because it can be sawn or 'squared up' in any direction, unlike other rocks such as slate, which form distinct layers.

Bath Stone has been used extensively as a building material throughout southern England, for churches, houses, and public buildings such as railway stations.

The Lissamphibia (from Greek λισσός (lissós, "smooth") + ἀμφίβια (amphíbia), meaning "smooth amphibians") is a group of tetrapods that includes all modern amphibians. Lissamphibians consist of three living groups: the Salientia (frogs and their extinct relatives), the Caudata (salamanders and their extinct relatives), and the Gymnophiona (the limbless caecilians and their extinct relatives).

Salientians and caudatans are likely more closely related to each other than to caecilians. The name Batrachia is commonly used for the clade combining salientians and caudatans. A fourth group, the Allocaudata (also known as Albanerpetontidae) is also known, spanning 160 million years from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Pleistocene, but became extinct two million years ago.

The Early Jurassic Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event, 201.3 Ma (million years ago), and ends at the start of the Middle Jurassic 174.7 ±0.8 Ma.

Certain rocks of marine origin of this age in Europe are called "Lias" and that name was used for the period, as well, in 19th-century geology. In southern Germany rocks of this age are called Black Jurassic.

A tadpole or polliwog (also spelled pollywog) is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found in adult amphibians, such as a lateral line, gills and swimming tails. As they undergo metamorphosis, they start to develop functional lungs for breathing air, and the diet of tadpoles changes drastically.

A few amphibians, such as some members of the frog family Brevicipitidae, undergo direct development – i.e., they do not undergo a free-living larval stage as tadpoles – instead emerging from eggs as fully formed "froglet" miniatures of the adult morphology. Some other species hatch into tadpoles underneath the skin of the female adult or are kept in a pouch until after metamorphosis. Having no hard skeletons, it might be expected that tadpole fossils would not exist. However, traces of biofilms have been preserved and fossil tadpoles have been found dating back to the Middle Jurassic.

Size is an important aspect of dinosaur paleontology, of interest to both the general public and professional scientists. Dinosaurs show some of the most extreme variations in size of any land animal group, ranging from tiny hummingbirds, which can weigh as little as two grams, to the extinct titanosaurs, such as Argentinosaurus and Bruhathkayosaurus which could weigh as much as 50–130 t (55–143 short tons).

The latest evidence suggests that dinosaurs' average size varied through the Triassic, early Jurassic, late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and dinosaurs probably only became widespread during the early or mid Jurassic. Predatory theropod dinosaurs, which occupied most terrestrial carnivore niches during the Mesozoic, most often fall into the 100–1,000 kg (220–2,200 lb) category when sorted by estimated weight into categories based on order of magnitude, whereas recent predatory carnivoran mammals peak in the range of 10–100 kg (22–220 lb). The mode of Mesozoic dinosaur body masses is between one and ten metric tonnes. This contrasts sharply with the size of Cenozoic mammals, estimated by the National Museum of Natural History as about 2 to 5 kg (4.4 to 11.0 lb).

Paraves are a widespread group of theropod dinosaurs that originated in the Middle Jurassic period. In addition to the extinct dromaeosaurids, troodontids, anchiornithids, and possibly the scansoriopterygids, the group also contains the avialans, which include diverse extinct taxa as well as the over 11,000 species of living birds.

Basal members of Paraves are well known for the possession of an enlarged claw on the second digit of the foot, which was held off the ground when walking in some species. A number of differing scientific interpretations of the relationships between paravian taxa exist. New fossil discoveries and analyses make the classification of Paraves an active subject of research.

Xiaotingia is a genus of paravian theropod dinosaur, possibly an anchiornithid, from Middle Jurassic or early Late Jurassic deposits of western Liaoning, China. It contains a single species, Xiaotingia zhengi.

Dromaeosauridae (/ˌdrɒmi.əˈsɔːrɪdiː/) is a family of feathered coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek δρομαῖος (dromaîos), meaning 'running at full speed', 'swift', and σαῦρος (saûros), meaning 'lizard'. In informal usage, they are often called raptors (after Velociraptor), a term popularized by the film Jurassic Park; several genera include the term "raptor" directly in their name, and popular culture has come to emphasize their bird-like appearance and speculated bird-like behavior.

Definitive dromaeosaurid fossils have been found in North America, Europe and Asia. Some paravian fossils found in other continents have been traditionally regarded as dromaeosaurids, but have recently been reinterpreted as a unique family Unenlagiidae outside Dromaeosauridae, with some authors considering them as a separate lineage of Avialae. The earliest body fossils are known from the Early Cretaceous (145–140 million years ago), and they survived until the end of the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian stage, 66 ma), existing until the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The presence of dromaeosaurids as early as the Middle Jurassic has been suggested by the discovery of isolated fossil teeth, though no dromaeosaurid body fossils have been found from this period.

The Carmel Formation is a geologic formation in the San Rafael Group that is spread across the U.S. states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, north east Arizona and New Mexico. Part of the Colorado Plateau, this formation was laid down in the Middle Jurassic during the late Bajocian, through the Bathonian and into the early Callovian stages.