CHAPTER 1 LIKE A LIZARD In the 1820s Gideon Mantell came upon some curious fossils Mantell was an English doctor and amateur fossil hunter How he got the fossils is a bit of a mystery His wife Mary Ann might have found the fossils beside a road Or local workers might have found the fossils in a quarry and brought them to Mantell Mantell wrote this letter soon after receiving the fossils 5
But no matter how he got them the fossils helped Mantell make an important discovery The fossils looked like huge teeth Some were 5 inches 13 cm long The teeth had a flat worn shape That shape meant the teeth had come from an herbivore Mantell asked other scientists to help identify what animal the teeth came from One scientist thought the teeth were from a large fish Another suggested a rhinoceros Mantell was not convinced He took the teeth to a museum in London This museum had specimens from all known animal species Mantell searched 6
This is one of the Iguanodon teeth the Mantells discovered through the specimens But he did not find a match for the teeth At the museum a young scientist named Samuel Stutchbury took a look at the fossils Stutchbury was an expert on iguanas He showed Mantell some iguana teeth The iguana teeth were much smaller than the fossil teeth But they had the same shape 7
