17 ‘Iguanodon mantelli’ (standing)

3D Model

Iguanodon means ‘iguana tooth’ and living iguanas as well as fossils, in fact from a number of different species, informed the artistic reconstructions behind the sculptures. Iguanodonts lived 140–124 million years ago and were plant eaters. They were probably the best-known dinosaur in the mid-19th century.

The two sculptures also illustrate conflicting ideas in the 1850s about how these dinosaurs would have stood. One is sprawling like an iguana with its hand resting on the trunk of a relative of cycads (a tropical plant group present from the Permian Period, 280 million years ago, to today); this one is standing on four legs, like an elephant. It is now thought they could probably walk on two or four legs. A famous error in both reconstructions is the presence of nose horns (found in many iguana species). Later discoveries showed that these were in fact thumb spikes, probably used for defence against predators.

Model by Rhys Griffin ©Rhys Griffin/FCPD & Historic England