Historic Mastodonsaurus reconstruction with Chirotherium footprints
(Illustration from the 19th century)

MODEL

Mastodonsaurus
1850s – Hawkins Style

Historic Scientific Model in Museum Quality (3D printing).
Available in three sizes and two colourations: Hawkins style (animal: anthracite + baseplate: black) and Éloffe style (animal: bronze shades + baseplate: grey). Or let us know your personal size/colour requests by email: office@palaeolove.com

Model Sizes 1 to 3
Length: 15, 21 or 29 cm
Width: 8.5, 12.5 or 17.5 cm
Height: 8, 11.5 or 16 cm
Scale: 1:40, 1:29 or 1:21
Weight: 72, 216 or 650 g

Clear

300.00 CHF850.00 CHF

Delivery time: 4-6 weeks


SKU: 900028 - 900030

 

Historic Scientific Model in Museum Quality (3D printing) of an old original table model of a life-size sculpture made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in the middle of the 19th century.

  • Each model is hand-painted and therefore unique.
  • Special feature: Baseplate with hand-like footprints of the Triassic trace fossil Chirotherium KAUP, 1835 (also known as hand-beast).
  • Chirotherium tracks were back then attributed to sprawling amphibians like Mastodonsaurus. Later it was realised that they were probably produced by reptiles like Ticinosuchus KREBS, 1965 with a pillar-erect gait.

Taxonomic note: the original table model was sold under the genus name Labyrinthodon OWEN, 1841, a junior synonym of Mastodonsaurus JÄGER, 1828.

PALAEOLOVE artwork and art wares are recognizable due to their scientifically accurate visualisation that is accompanied by sound, science-based information. Our products are designed in Switzerland and analogously & digitally handmade in Switzerland and other European countries under the guidance of experts, true to the motto: «Science meets Design»!

The abbreviation «MIO» (= million, after the German national standard DIN 5008) – occasionally found on our goods and product pages to indicate the geological age of fossil taxa – is equivalent to «MYA» (= million years ago).

 

Depicted Animal

Mastodonsaurus  JÄGER, 1828
6 M    240 MYA   

Historic model from the 1850s

Systematics: Mastodonsauridae, Capitosauria, Stereospondyli, Temnospondyli, Amphibia
Habitat: aquatic; amphibious (base plate with hand-like footprints of Chirotherium  KAUP, 1835)

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 Mastodonsaurus 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 Mastodonsaurus means «breast tooth lizard» after a tooth which is broken at its tip. Mastodonsaurus was an aquatic amphibian known from Middle and Late Triassic sediments. It was a top predator that fed on fish and other amphibians.

In the historic model Mastodonsaurus is reconstructed as an amphibian with a common batrachian habitus. It was assumed that such monstrous creatures similar to frogs but with vast mouths and dentitions resembling those of lizards and crocodiles once roamed the earth. Moreover, Mastodonsaurus was thought to produce hand-like footprints found in Triassic sandstones (first observed in Saxony, Germany) and described as Chirotherium (meaning «hand beast»), but more recent research found that the tracks belong to pseudosuchian reptiles like, e.g., Ticinosuchus.

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

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