Gideon Mantell - the first dinosaur hunter
In 1822 Gideon Mantell, a doctor from Lewes, East Sussex, described a fossil tooth which his wife had found by the side of the road in Cuckfield, West Sussex. This tooth was the first dinosaur fossil in the world ever to be identified. For the very first time people began to realise that creatures as large as dinosaurs had once existed.
Gideon Mantell went on to search for, discover and identify many other dinosaur remains.
What did Iguanodon look like?
Mantell's first impression of Iguanodon was very different to how we now believe it looked. As more remains of the dinosaur have been discovered over the last almost 200 years, our view of Iguanodon has changed dramatically
Read more about the dinosaur hunters and their discoveries
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