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Iguanadon Fossil Discovered
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“Iguanadon traveled in herds because fossils were found in groups so that makes us or scientists think that they weren’t traveling alone.”
— Malene
Iguanodon fossil discovered
Iguanodon was 9 meters (30 feet) long, stood nearly 2 meters tall at the hip, and weighed four to five tons. The animal’s fossil was found in 1822, the discovery of this fossil led us, humans, to kick-start our fascination with dinosaurs. According to Britannica, Iguanodon was named for its teeth, whose similarity to those of modern iguanas also provided the dinosaur’s discoverer, the English physician Gideon Mantell, with the first clue that dinosaurs had been reptiles.
The people that did the first discoveries were “Mary Ann Mantell (1795-1869) and her husband Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790-1852), it was recorded that they had found the first evidence of Iguanodon” according to Natural History Museum. Two of the Iguanodon teeth found by Mary Ann Mantell, still embedded in rock. The discovery of this fossil led to proving that the spikes were thumbs rather than horns. But there is still speculation about what they were used for, although scientists can evaluate from fossils that the dinosaur's spikes were large, the bones are not representative of their full size in life According to the Natural History Museum.
The discovery of Iguanodon teeth led to a dinosaur discovery after it was scientifically described as a dinosaur, and the first having been Megalosaurus. The pieces that were sent to Belgium and studied by Louis Dollo n the early 21st century it became understood that the remains referred to Iguanodon in England belonged to four different species so that makes that it opened up for more discovery of new dinosaurs, Iguanodon was the second type of dinosaur formally named based on fossil specimens, after Megalosaurus according to Wikipedia.
Iguanodon traveled in herds because fossils were found in groups so that makes us or scientists that they weren’t traveling alone. In the 21st century, Iguanodon material is being used in the search for dinosaur biomolecules.
The dinosaur fossil was named iguanodon for one reason, the reason is teeth are, as the name suggests, like those of an iguana, but larger. “Unlike hadrosaurids, which had columns of replacement teeth, Iguanodon only had one replacement tooth at a time for each position.”
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Iguanodon was part of the initial work of the dinosaur renaissance that began with the description of Deinonychus in 1969, but it was not that long that they stopped getting neglected because Iguanodon is one of the first dinosaur genera to have been named, numerous species have been assigned to it according to Wikipedia and Britannica.
_____Malene _____
Websites:
- "Iguanodon - Wikipedia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguanodon. Accessed 25 May. 2020.
- "Iguanodon: the teeth that led to a dinosaur discovery | Natural ...." https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-discovery-of-iguanodon.html. Accessed 25 May. 2020.
Article creator: Malene WiinbladLast edited the article: 5/27/2020
- "Iguanodon | dinosaur genus | Britannica." https://www.britannica.com/animal/Iguanodon. Accessed 25 May. 2020.
Picture:
- "Iguanodon: the teeth that led to a dinosaur discovery | Natural ...." https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-discovery-of-iguanodon.html. Accessed 25 May. 2020. - "Iguanodon: the teeth that led to a dinosaur discovery | Natural ...." https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-discovery-of-iguanodon.html. Accessed 25 May. 2020.
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AISM Magazine | 22
