The second dinosaur named
It was named in 1825 by Gideon Mantell, a Sussex doctor, from teeth that looked like a giant iguana's.
The plant-eaters · Beaked plant-eaters
Iguanodon
Iguana tooth · ig-WAH-no-don
A large plant-eater with a horse-like head, a toothless beak and a sharp spike on each thumb.
- Size
- About 10m long; 3 to 5 tonnes
- Lived
- About 126 to 122 million years ago
- Found in
- Belgium; also England, Germany and Spain
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To scale
How big was it?
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Good to know
Six things about the iguanodon
The thumb was put on its nose
Early drawings placed the spike on its nose like a rhino's horn. It turned out to be a thumb.
Thirty-eight in a coal mine
In 1878 miners in Belgium found dozens of complete skeletons 322 metres underground.
A hand that did three jobs
A spiked thumb, three middle fingers for walking on and a bendy little finger for grasping.
Dinner inside a model
In 1853 a dinner party was held inside a life-size model of one at Crystal Palace.
It could chew
Its upper jaw could flex outwards, grinding food against the lower teeth.
The real thing
Photos of the iguanodon
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
What it ate
Horsetails, ferns and cycads.
How we know
The Belgian skeletons are among the most complete dinosaurs ever found.
Keep going
More from The plant-eaters
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