Question 1

How do you say Iguanodon?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon is pronounced ig-WHA-noh-don. The stress falls on the second syllable, so you say it like 'ig-KWAH-noh-don' when speaking naturally. Break it into four parts: ig, WHAH, noh, don, and run them together smoothly. It rhymes roughly with 'big wanna con.' Once you get it, you will never forget it.

Question 2

What does Iguanodon mean?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon means 'iguana tooth.' The name was chosen by Gideon Mantell in 1825 because the fossil teeth he found looked remarkably like a giant version of iguana teeth. The first part comes from the word 'iguana,' borrowed from an indigenous Arawak language, and the second part 'odon' comes from the Ancient Greek word for tooth. Despite the name, Iguanodon and modern iguanas are only very distantly related.

Question 3

How big was Iguanodon?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon bernissartensis was a genuinely massive dinosaur, reaching up to 11 meters (about 36 feet) in length and weighing around 4,500 kilograms, which is roughly the same as a large African elephant. It was about as long as a full city bus. Its hind legs alone were taller than most adult humans. Despite its size, scientists believe it was capable of moving reasonably quickly, especially when threatened.

Question 4

What did Iguanodon eat?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon was a herbivore, meaning it ate only plants. It used a tough, toothless beak at the front of its jaw to crop vegetation, then ground it up with rows of ridged cheek teeth further back in its mouth. It likely fed on ferns, cycads, horsetails, and possibly early flowering plants. Its flexible fifth finger could wrap around branches and pull them closer, making it an active and capable forager.

Question 5

Was Iguanodon dangerous?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon was a plant-eater, so it was not hunting anything down. But it was definitely not defenseless. Each hand had a large, rigid, conical thumb spike that could be used as a powerful weapon against predators. Scientists believe a direct blow from that spike, driven by an animal weighing over four tonnes, could do serious damage to any attacker. A fully grown Iguanodon would have been a very intimidating target.

Question 6

Where was Iguanodon found?

Accepted Answer

The most famous Iguanodon fossils come from Belgium, where 38 skeletons were discovered in a coal mine in Bernissart in 1878. Fossils have also been found in England, Germany, Spain, France, and Portugal. Iguanodon lived across what is now western Europe during the Early Cretaceous period, roughly 126 to 122 million years ago, when that region was a warm, low-lying floodplain environment.

Question 7

Did Iguanodon walk on two legs or four?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon could do both, and scientists believe it switched between the two depending on what it was doing. It probably walked on all four limbs most of the time when moving slowly or grazing. When it needed to move faster, reach higher vegetation, or defend itself, it likely reared up onto its two powerful hind legs. Its hands had hoof-like nails on the middle three fingers, suggesting they were designed to bear weight on the ground.

Question 8

When did Iguanodon live?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon bernissartensis lived during the Early Cretaceous period, specifically during the Barremian to early Aptian ages, roughly 126 to 122 million years ago. That is more than 60 million years before the famous mass extinction that wiped out the non-bird dinosaurs. To put that in perspective, Iguanodon is actually further in time from T. rex than T. rex is from us today.

Question 9

Who discovered Iguanodon?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon was discovered by Gideon Algernon Mantell, an English physician and fossil hunter, around 1822. According to a popular story, his wife Mary Ann Mantell found the first teeth in a pile of road gravel in Sussex, England, though historians debate exactly how it happened. Mantell formally named the animal in 1825, making it only the second dinosaur ever to receive a scientific name after Megalosaurus.

Question 10

What was the horn on Iguanodon's nose?

Accepted Answer

That was actually a famous scientific mistake. When the first Iguanodon fossils were assembled in the 1850s, scientists found a large conical spike and assumed it belonged on the animal's nose like a rhinoceros horn. For decades, reconstructions showed Iguanodon with a nose spike. It was not until better, more complete skeletons were found that paleontologists realized the spike actually sat on the thumb of each hand. The nose-spike Iguanodon models at Crystal Palace Park in London still stand today as a reminder of this mix-up.

Question 11

How many Iguanodon fossils have been found?

Accepted Answer

A remarkable number. The 1878 discovery at the Bernissart coal mine in Belgium alone produced remains from at least 38 individual animals, many of them nearly complete articulated skeletons. These are among the most complete large dinosaur skeletons ever found anywhere in the world. Combined with specimens from England, Germany, Spain, and other sites, Iguanodon is one of the most thoroughly documented dinosaurs in the fossil record, which is why scientists know so much about how it looked and moved.

Question 12

Is Iguanodon related to T. rex?

Accepted Answer

No, Iguanodon and T. rex are not closely related at all. Iguanodon belonged to a group called Ornithischia, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, while T. rex was a member of Theropoda, a completely different branch of the dinosaur family tree. They are roughly as distantly related as a horse is to a dolphin. They also lived tens of millions of years apart: Iguanodon was an Early Cretaceous animal, while T. rex appeared near the very end of the Cretaceous period.

Question 13

Does Iguanodon appear in Jurassic Park or any movies?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon does not appear prominently in the main Jurassic Park films, though it has featured in other dinosaur documentaries and media. It appears in the BBC documentary series 'Walking with Dinosaurs,' which remains one of the most detailed animated portrayals of its behavior and appearance. Iguanodon has also featured in the animated film 'Dinosaur' from the year 2000, where the main character Aladar is an Iguanodon raised by lemurs.

Question 14

Why is Iguanodon so important to science?

Accepted Answer

Iguanodon is one of the most historically important dinosaurs ever discovered. It was only the second dinosaur to be formally named, and its description in the 1820s and 1830s helped scientists realize that giant extinct reptiles had once dominated the Earth. It also played a central role in Richard Owen's 1842 definition of the group Dinosauria. The massive Bernissart discovery in 1878 gave scientists their first truly detailed look at what a large dinosaur actually looked like, shaping paleontology for generations.

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