In the middle of the 19th century the English sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawinks and the then superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum Richard Owen worked together to create first life-size reconstructions of prehistoric animals. They were commissioned in 1852 and unveiled around 1854 in the Crystal Palace Park were they are still visible today.

Nice table models were prepared from some of the Crystal Palace outdoor sculptures in full-length and sold worldwide in the second half of the 19th century by James Tennant, London, Arthur Éloffe, Paris, and Henry A. Ward, Rochester, USA. Today, these small historic models are very rare and can almost be found only at auctions. With our hand-painted Iguanodon respectively Mantellisaurus 3D print we thus close a gap by making one of these lovely models again available to all enthusiasts of the prehistoric world and palaeontological research history respectively.

The genus name Iguanodon means «iguana tooth» in reference to the fact that the morphology of its teeth resembles the one of the green iguana. Iguanodon was an Early Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur that fed on plants and probably used its spike-like thumbs and powerful tail as defensive weapons against carnivorous dinosaurs. Even though ornithopods were generally biped, Iguanodon stood and usually walked on all fours.

At this point it has to be mentioned that the Crystal Palace Iguanodon and hence also Hawkins' archetype of our historic model may be based on the Maidstone specimen from Kent, South England, also known as Gideon Mantell's «mantel-piece», which is now referred to Mantellisaurus PAUL, 2007 or rather to Mantellodon PAUL, 2012. Therefore, one of these new genus names may become the new proper scientific name for the Maidstone specimen and hence also for the Crystal Palace Iguanodon, Hawkins' miniature archetype and our historic model. Currently, we follow NORMAN (2013) and prefer the use of the genus name Mantellisaurus to solve this nomenclatorical problem.

The historic Iguanodon respectively Mantellisaurus model has a massive body resembling the one of a heavily built ungulate and carries its thumb as a rhinoceros-like horn on the top of its snout. These errors in the prehistoric animal reconstruction discussed here identifies it as a clear representation of the state of palaeontological knowledge in the 1850s.

Further readings
> Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and the Crystal Palace Prehistoric Animals
> Arthur Éloffe
> Henry A. Ward
> James Tennant
> Early Iguanodon Life Reconstructions

• NORMAN, D.B. (2013): On the taxonomy and diversity of Wealden iguanodontian dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Ornithopoda). Revue de Paléobiologie 32 (2): 385-404.
• PAUL, G.S. (2007): Turning the old into new: a separate genus for the gracile iguanodont from the Wealden of England. - In: K. CARPENTER (ed), Horns and Beaks, Indiana University Press: 69-77.
• PAUL, G. S. (2012): Notes on the rising diversity of iguanodont taxa, and iguanodonts named after Darwin, Huxley, and evolutionary science. - In: P.H. HURTADO et al. (eds), Actas de V Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontologia de Dinosaurios y su Entorno. Colectivo Arqueologico y Paleontologico de Salas, C.A.S., Salas de Los Infantes, Burgos 5: 123-133.