Iguanodon

He discovered the fossil bones of the prehistoric Iguanodon in the Sussex Weald

Like the teeth of the recent iguana, the crown of the tooth is accuminated; the edges are strongly serrated or dentated; the outer surface is ridged, and the inner smooth and convex. ~ Gideon Mantell

Iguanodon (Greek for 'iguana-tooth'), named in 1825, is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur. While many species found worldwide have been classified in the genus Iguanodon, dating from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, taxonomic revision in the early 21st century has defined Iguanodon to be based on one well-substantiated species: I. bernissartensis, which lived during the Barremian to early Aptian ages of the Early Cretaceous in Belgium, Germany, England, and Spain, between about 126 and 122 million years ago. Iguanodon was a large, bulky herbivore, measuring up to 9–11 metres (30–36 ft) in length and 4.5 metric tons (5 short tons) in body mass. Distinctive features include large thumb spikes, which were possibly used for defence against predators, combined with long prehensile fifth fingers able to forage for food.

The genus was named in 1825 by English geologist Gideon Mantell, based on fossil specimens found in England and was given the species name I. anglicus. Iguanodon was the second type of dinosaur formally named based on fossil specimens, after Megalosaurus.

Quotes

Scientific

• He discovered the fossil bones of the prehistoric Iguanodon in the Sussex Weald
  • Blue plaque by the door of Gideon Mantell's house in Lewes

• Like the teeth of the recent iguana, the crown of the tooth is accuminated; the edges are strongly serrated or dentated; the outer surface is ridged, and the inner smooth and convex; and as in that animal the secondary teeth appear to have been formed in a hollow in the base of the primary ones, which they expelled as they increased in size. From the appearance of the fangs in such fossil teeth as are in a good state of preservation, it seems probable that they adhered to the inner side of the maxillae, as in the iguana, and were not placed in separate alveoli, as in the crocodile. [...] [T]he term IGUANODON, derived from the form of the teeth, (and which I have adopted at the sugges­tion of the Rev. W. Conybeare) will not, it is presumed, be deemed objectionable.
  • Gideon A. Mantell, "Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate forest, in Sussex". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 115 (1825), pp. 183–184.

• Iguanodon was a relative of the duckbill. It won international fame as the first dinosaur made known to science, when it was dug from road-gravel quarries in Sussex, England, in 1822. The iguanodont's adaptations were styled after the duckbill's—closely packed chopping shredding teeth (although iguanodont's weren't as complex as duckbill's).
  • Robert T. Bakker, The Dinosaur Heresies (1986), Chapter 8. Dinosaurs at Table

• Iguanodon was about thirty feet (ten meters) long and weighed a few tons. It had a spike on its thumb for defense and a beak at the front of its mouth for snipping plants, and it could switch between walking on all fours and sprinting on its hind legs. Its line would eventually go on to produce the hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, [...]
  • Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2018), Chapter 4. Dinosaurs and Drifting Continents

Literary

• In bas-relief he late has shown
    A horrible show, agreed—
  Megalosaurus, iguanodon,
  Palaeotherium Glypthaecon,
    A Barnum-show raree;
  • Herman Melville, "The New Ancient of Days"

• "You'll find their footmarks all over the Hastings sands, in Kent, and in Sussex. The South of England was alive with them when there was plenty of good lush green-stuff to keep them going. Conditions have changed, and the beasts died. Here it seems that the conditions have not changed, and the beasts have lived."
• In the morning it was not long before we discovered the source of the hideous uproar which had aroused us in the night. The iguanodon glade was the scene of a horrible butchery. From the pools of blood and the enormous lumps of flesh scattered in every direction over the green sward we imagined at first that a number of animals had been killed, but on examining the remains more closely we discovered that all this carnage came from one of these unwieldy monsters, which had been literally torn to pieces by some creature not larger, perhaps, but far more ferocious, than itself.
  • Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World (1912)