Dinosaur: The Terrible Lizards
The Early Dinosaurs
(above) early drawing of Iguanadon
Fossils of shellfish and ammonites (see background image) were commonly found in the cliffs along the British coast line. As people started digging farther they discovered fossils of ancient sea animals too. They figured that these animals had lived before the Biblical flood and had been killed. It was possible they speculated that they perhaps still survived deep in the ocean. From these early fossils they drew a picture of the pre-flood times as ones spent on or around the ocean or swamps. (see illustration below).
In 1824 the picture of the pre-flood world began to change. Fossils of the jaws and hip bones of large animals were being found in mines and around the countryside because of an increase in agriculture and mining. Gideon Mantell discovered several large teeth in a piece of jaw bone. He saw similarities between the fossilized teeth and those of the iguana, and so named his find Iguanadon or"iguana tooth". Sir Richard Owen also saw the similarities between Iguandon and modern reptiles. He classified the ancient creatures that scientists were finding as Dinosauria or"terrible lizards". He believed that it was possible to reconstruct any ancient animal from a few remains if they were compared to similar creatures. Waterhouse Hawkins created life-size replicas of these animals under the supervision of Owen and displayed them in the gardens surrounding the Crystal Palace (a former museum outside of London). (Hawkin's Iguanadon is pictured below.)
Because of all the early fossil finds of ocean animals, scientists believed that these 'terrible lizards' lived a slow, cold-blooded, life around warm and sticky pre-flood swamps. These ideas were first based on the Biblical account of the flood and then on scientific evidence. As further scientific evidence followed from discoveries in North America, it would become more obvious that the dinosaurs did not live in swamps at all. However, Owen's view of the dinosaurs as swamp dwelling reptiles would still prevail over any other dinosaurian views for almost another 100 years.
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