Gideon Mantell was a doctor living and working in Sussex, who was also deeply interested in geology, and in 1813 had a type of ammonite named after him. In 1822, his wife Mary found the fossils of several large teeth, which were initially dismissed by the geological establishment, but which Mantell recognised as belonging to an animal similar to an iguana, though on a much larger scale. Combined with other large fossilised bones he had unearthed, he eventually proved that what they had found was the fossilised skeleton of the first recognised dinosaur, which he named the iguanodon.

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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Gideon Mantell discovers the fossilized skeleton of an iguanodon dinosaur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=6253, accessed 23 November 2024.]