Crystal Palace Park: the dinosaurs

Image: © Christopher Hilton Taken: 2 Aug 2008

Designed by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807–1894), drawing on the advice of the palaeontologist and comparative anatomist Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892), and one of the few surviving pieces of the park as it was originally laid out. This particular creature, the Iguanodon, is the one sculpture in which Hawkins and Owen's depiction departs notably from modern knowledge. At the time, no complete Iguanodon skeleton had been found, and Owen surmised a heavy, quadruped form by analogy with modern lizards; subsequent discoveries suggest that the Iguanodon was slimmer in build and often stood on its hind legs to reach the tops of trees. In particular, Owen was puzzled by a single sharp, thornlike bone and surmised that it might be a small horn, putting it on the end of the nose like a little rhinoceros horn: later discoveries of more complete skeletons, which have two such bones, have shown that it was actually a sharp, curved thumb.

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