28 Days Of Dinosauria - 23

[swordznsorcery]

Day 23: Iguanodon is a hugely important dinosaur, due to the fossils that it left behind, scattered about the English countryside. One of the first dinosaurs known to science, it was the pet project of pioneering palaeontologist Gideon Mantell, who realised that he had found the remnants of some sort of giant, herbivorous lizard, but struggled at first to get the scientific community to take his discovery seriously. Because it was identified so early in the history of dinosaur discovery, when knowledge was sketchy, many bones were assigned to the name erroneously, and have later been reidentified. This includes Mantell's original teeth, which are now assigned to a new species of Iguanodont, named Therosaurus anglicus.

The name Iguanodon means "Iguana tooth", due to the similarity of its teeth to those of modern iguanas, and for that reason it was initially assumed to have looked much like a giant iguana. Further study and later discoveries suggested that it was bipedal, but still later discoveries have made it seem likely that it spent a fair bit of its time on all fours, probably rising up on its back legs to feed. It lived in Europe, in the early Cretaceous (around 120 million years ago), was herbivorous, and would have probably have been up to ten metres long (the best known species, I. bernissartensis, may have reached thirteen metres).

Comments

[howsmyenglish]

Oh! Finally one that I know! When I was little I was taught a funny song about an Iguanodon, who had a female Pterodactylus friend :D
Nice to finally learn what it's name means!

[swordznsorcery]

I think this is one that most people have heard of. I have to throw in some famous ones now and again!

[dimity_blue]

Oh, another one that looks familiar! Isn't Nessie rather similar in shape?

[swordznsorcery]

Very much depends on the artist's interpretation! Traditionally she's drawn as either a serpent, or somewhat plesiosaury. Certainly in "The Family Ness" the design was more bipedal though.