Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 24, 2012



Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs. Many species of Iguanodon have been named, dating from the Kimmeridgian age of the Late Jurassic Period to the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous Period from Asia, Europe, and North America. However, research in the first decade of the 21st century suggests that there is only one well-substantiated species named I. bernissartensis, that lived from the late Barremian to the earliest Aptian ages (Early Cretaceous) in Belgium, between about 126 and 125 million years ago. Iguanodon's most distinctive features were its large thumb spikes, which were possibly used for defence against predators, combined with long prehensile fifth fingers able to forage for food. Named in 1825 by English geologist Gideon Mantell, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur formally named, after Megalosaurus. A large, bulky herbivore, Iguanodon is a member of Iguanodontia, along with the duck-billed hadrosaurs. (more...)

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