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Armoured Dinosaurs and the Iguanodon: Mantell

There was one man, however, who foresaw the importance of Mantell's discovery, and that was Dr. Wollaston. This distinguished philosopher, though not a naturalist, supported the doctor's idea that the teeth belonged to an unknown herbivorous reptile, and encouraged him to continue his researches. The workmen in the quarry were stimulated by suitable rewards, and at length the doctor's efforts resulted in the discovery of teeth which displayed the curious serrated edges, and the entire form of the unused crown. Having forwarded specimens and drawings of these to Paris, Dr. Mantell went to DINOSAURS London, and ransacked all the drawers in the Hunterian Museum that contained jaws and teeth of reptiles, but without finding any that threw light on this subject. Fortunately, Mr. Samuel Stutchbury, then a young man, was present, and proposed to show him the skeleton of an Iguana, which he had himself prepared from a specimen that had long been immersed in spirits. And now the puzzle was in a fair way to being solved; for, to his great delight, the doctor found that the minute teeth of that reptile bore a closer resemblance in their general form to those from Tilgate Forest than any others he had ever seen. In spite of this fortunate discovery, however, others remained obstinate and unconvinced; and it was not until he had collected a series of specimens, exhibiting various stages of the teeth, that the correctness of his opinion was admitted, either as to their true interpretation, or the age of the strata in which they were imbedded. And now there came good news from Paris. Cuvier, with the fresh material submitted to him, had boldly renounced his previous opinion, and gave the weight of his great authority to the view maintained by the discoverer of these teeth. In a letter to the doctor he said that such teeth were quite unknown to him, and that they belonged to some reptile. He suggested that they implied the existence of a new animal, a herbivorous reptile. Time would either confirm or disprove the idea, and in the mean time he advised Dr. Mantell to seek diligently for further evidence, and, if part of a jaw could be found with teeth adhering, he believed he could solve the problem. In his immortal work, Ossemens Fossiles, Cuvier generously admits his former mistake, and said he was entirely convinced of his error. Baron Cuvier alone amongst the doctor's friends or correspondents was able to give any hint as to the character and probable relations of the animal to which the recently discovered teeth belonged. Being hampered by arduous professional duties in a provincial town, remote from museums and libraries, Dr. Mantell transmitted to the Royal Society figures and drawings of the specimens, and, at the suggestion of the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, adopted the name Iguanodon (Iguana-tooth) for the extinct reptile, a name which pointed to the resemblance of its teeth to those of the modern iguana, a land-lizard some three to five feet long, inhabiting many parts of America and the West Indies, and rarely met with north or south of the tropics.

In all living reptiles the insects or vegetables on which they feed are seized by the tongue or teeth, and swallowed whole, so that a movable covering to the jaws, similar to the lips and cheeks of the mammalia, is not necessary, either for seizing and retaining food or for subjecting it by muscular movements to the action of the teeth. It is the power of perfect mastication possessed by the Iguanodon that is so strange, for it implies a most remarkable approach in extinct reptiles to characters possessed now only by herbivorous mammalia, such as horses, cows, deer, etc. From this and other strange characters seen in the Dinosaurs, we learn that they in their day played the part of our modern mammals, whether carnivorous or herbivorous, and showed remarkable approach to the mammalian type, which of course is a much higher one. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Dr. Mantell's contemporaries, with the exception of Cuvier, found in these teeth an awkward puzzle and refused to believe that they belonged to a reptile. Such a notion was at variance with all previous experience; and we naturally form our conclusions largely by experience. The importance of discovering, if possible, a portion of the jaw of an Iguanodon was fully recognised by Dr. Mantell, and, urged by the encouragement he had received from the illustrious Cuvier, he eagerly sought for the required DINOSAURS evidence. But nearly a quarter of a century elapsed before it was forthcoming. In the years 1841 and 1848 portions of the lower jaw with some attached teeth were found. It is very interesting in the light of recent discoveries to read the conclusions arrived at by Mantell and Owen, with regard to the organisation of this great Wealden reptile, and to see how, with the exception of certain details, they have been confirmed. Considering the imperfect nature of the materials at their command, it is wonderful that their forecasts should have turned out so successful. Thus Professor Owen predicted for the Iguanodon a total length of twenty-eight feet, and specimens discovered of late years show a length of twenty-four feet.