Mary Ann Mantell and the first Iguanodon
-Chrissie

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            One of the earliest dinosaurs to be found and named in modern science is the Iguanodon. It was identified from teeth found in 1822 by Mary Ann Mantell, the wife of doctor and amateur geologist Gideon Mantell. He consulted prominent natural scientists Charles Lyell and Georges Cuvier, who were unsure as to the origins of the fossils. They were examined two years later by William Buckland and then again by Cuvier, who now thought they were worth more attention. The positive feedback from these men prompted Martell to arrange for further excavation in the area around the Tilgate Forest, where the initial find had been made. A more complete specimen was discovered. Gideon Mantell wrote a paper for the Royal Society of London in 1825, in which he included comments from Cuvier saying it was likely a new animal, some kind of herbivorous reptile. The Iguanodon was later described further in Mantell’s 1827 Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex.

Iguanodon was one of the three examples used to define the idea of Dinosaur, alongside Megalosaurus and Hylaeosaurus. The first ideas of what Iguanodon, and many other dinosaurs, looked like were colored by the lack of complete skeletons and the belief that they were essentially giant lizards. And so, the image of Iguanodon as a four-legged lumbering creature akin to a cow or a rhinoceros stayed in the public mind for decades. This was thanks, in part, to the statues of Iguanodon and some other dinosaurs in the 1853 Crystal Palace Exhibition. As with so many of the early dinosaurs, the skeletons were reconstructed according to what researchers thought they should look like rather than the body structure indicated by the bones themselves. An attempt was made to correct the lizard-like presentation in the 1880s, when paleontologist Louis Dollo used recently discovered complete skeletons to show that the animals were bipedal. He was moving in the right direction but went a little too far. He shifted the Iguanodon into a completely upright position, one which required some of the tail bones to be broken to create the posture he desired.

Iguanodon was caught up in the Dinosaur Renaissance of the twentieth century, allowing its posture to be corrected yet again. More specimens and comparison with similarly-built dinosaurs showed that these animals were essentially bipedal, but walked with their spines nearly parallel to the ground and their tails straight out behind them. Their forearms were free to use for digging or picking something up, but could also be used to steady the body and move in a quadrupedal fashion if needed.

Despite the fact that it was her husband’s name on the publications, Mary Ann Mantell is generally given credit for the initial find of the Iguanodon teeth, even though Gideon later claimed he’d found them. Whoever made the initial discovery, it was Gideon who got the bulk of the credit. Like many wives of scientists and academics, we cannot know for certain the extent of her contribution to his work, but we do know that his descriptions of Iguanodon and many other animals were brought to life by her (uncredited) drawings.