Mary Ann's Teeth
As we already saw , Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to ever be described by science back in 1824. It was also the first evidence that big predatory reptiles had once walked the land (giant marine reptiles had already been discovered before, with Ichtyosaurus being described in 182 1 and Mosasaurus in 1822 ) . T he n in 1825 another paramount discovery would follow when British physician, geologist and paleontologist Gideon Mantell named and described Iguanodon (“iguana tooth”) based on several teeth and an incomplete skeleton. This time it was clear that this new prehistoric saurian was, unlike Buckland’s Megalosaurus , a herbivore. Or at least it was to Mantell, who very cleverly identified its remains, especially its teeth, as those of a huge plant-eating reptile from the Mesozoic era . Unfortunately for him, not every one of his peers agreed at first. French anatomist George s Cuvier identified the teeth as those of a rhinoceros from the Tertiary , an opinion that ...