Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Downing Street, Cambridge01223 333456 www.sedgwickmuseum.org

Sedgwick Museum

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Bag of bonesCopy and cut out the indicated number ofeach bone to make up your bag of bones.Then get creative, what creatures can youmake?

See the next page for some tips on how touse this in class.

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Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences! Downing Street! CambridgeWPjjI IIIzxN wwwAsedgwickmuseumAorg

Sedgwick Museum

Teachers tip

P’ Give each group a BBag of BonesB and ask them to reconstruct the animal that the bones belong toAj’ Compare each group’s creature lthey will all be differentT’

I’ Some questions to ask the classA There are no right or wrong answers but they are great startingquestions to think like a palaeontologistAAre there are any bones missing?Are all the bones from the same animal?Which group is right?

Palaeontologists lscientists who study fossils’ are lucky if they find a complete skeleton with all thebones in the right placeA They are more likely to find only a few bones or a very jumbled up skeletonAIt is hard enough to put a skeleton back together when you know what the animal looked like!imagine how hard it is when you donBt know what it looked likeT ItBs a bit like having a jigsaw puzzlelor even several’ jumbled up in a box! you have to put the puzzle back together but you donBt havethe picture on the box for referenceA

Nobody has ever seen a dinosaur! our ideas of how these ancient creatures might look is based on thebones we find and how we interpret themA As more fossils come to light! palaeontologists areconstantly refining their ideas of what these animals looked likeA

Try your hand at being a Palaeontologist

Ask your groups to draw their creature in the fleshA What details can they add to their drawings thatare not preserved in the fossils eg what colour it might beA

Put some flesh on

Create a data sheetThings to put on your data sheetA Name! what it ate! hight! habitat! markingsA Signature ofpalaeontologistA

Cut out all the bones and laminate themA Cut out the laminatedbones for a longer lasting BBag of BonesBA

Bag of Bones

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences( Downing Street( CambridgeOPHH7 777BLJ wwwzsedgwickmuseumzorg

Sedgwick Museum

The story of IguanodonWhen you vist to the Sedgwick museum the first thing youlll see is our Iguanodonz In the HOO yearssince the first fossils were found our ideas of how the animal might look have changedz

PNO?z The first fossilised remains of an Iguanodon to be found were some bits ofback bone and a shin bonez

PN7Bz A partial skeleton was discovered that had teethz The teeth were very similarto living Iguanas 8which is where Iguanodon got its name9 so itls not surprising thatthe first sketch of an Iguanodon resembles a modern lizardz This skeletonalso included a conical bone that was assumed to behorn and put on the end of the creatures nosez

PNLOsz Richard Owen made some reconstructions of dinosaurs for theparkland at Crystal Palacez He had been able to show that creatureslike Iguanodon were built more like elephants than lizardsz Owensreconstruction looks rather like a scaly rhinocerosz

PN!Nz Almost BO Iguanodon skeletons were found inBelgium( amazinly many of them were completez Profz Louis Dollo began work on

the fossils and suggested that instead of looking like lizards( they may havestood tall on powerful back legs with their tail along the ground for balancezJust like the Sedgwick museums Iguanodonz In fact our Iggy is a cast of one

of those found in Belgiumz Dollo also proved once and for all that thenose horn was in fact a thumb clawT

This idea of how Iggy looked remained for about POO yearsz

P?NOz David Norman proved that Iguanodon actually walked on all fourszIts hands and arms are very powerful and the claws on the hand end in abroad flattened hooves( similar to its feetz Animals only have hooves ontheir hands if they are used for walking onT He also showed that the tailhad been broken to give it the upward curvez In life it would have beenheld out straight and off the groundz

So why is our Iggy still standing upright? Well hels the icon of our museumand we love to tell the story of how ideas have changed and why it is soimportant to keep studying animals form the pastz

Iguanodon teeth

Plaster model of Owens Iguanodon

Reconstruction based on Normans work

Reconstruction based on Dollos work