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The iguanodon...

... is a herbivorous dinosaur that lived between 123 and 126 billion years ago. An adult specimen was around 5m tall, between 8 and 10m long and weighed around 4 tonnes. This was the second type of dinosaur to be identified, in 1822, after a few bones were discovered in southern England. However, following the discovery of a number of much more complete specimens in a coal mine in Bernissart, Belgium, in 1878, the appearance that had been attributed to it 60 years earlier was greatly modified, without however lending it the agility and certain other characteristics that have since been attributed to it.  


This is a 3D print, freely available online, in resin at (more or less) 1:144 scale.

 Dominique Jadoul

The finding in Bernissart, Belgium

The story begins at the end of March 1878 at the Bernissart colliery, in the Sainte-Barbe pit. Miners were digging a 322m deep gallery and came across a pocket of clay. Instead of going around it, they decided to go through it... and, after several days, came across tree trunks full of gold! They were in fact Iguanodon bones encrusted with pyrite, a mineral with a golden sheen. On 12 April 1878, Belgium's Royal Museum of Natural History was notified of the discovery by telegram. (Source: Natural Sciences BE, Les iguanodons de Bernissart ).