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Description

This is my repaint of the Carnegie Collection 1/40 Iguanodon.

Iguanodon was an interesting animal from an interesting stage of the Mesozoic. Iguanodon is often described in textbooks as being the "archetypical ornithopod", the name ornithopod meaning "bird foot", and referring to a large group of herbivorous dinosaurs that included both Iguanodon and it's close relatives, and also the hadrosaurs. During the early Cretaceous Iguanodon (or animals very much like it) roamed throughout Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Growing up to nine metres long, this huge animal marked something of a "changing of the guard" in the diversity of herbivorous dinosaurs, as large ornithopod plant-eaters (evolved from smaller and more and fleet footed hypsilodon-like animals) began to take over in terms of ecological importance from the massive sauropods of the Jurassic. Whereas the hypsilodon-like ornithopods were bipedal, the larger Iguanodontids and hadrosaurs would have been mostly quadrepedal, although retaining the ability to occasionally rear up on two legs if necessary. One reason Iguanodon might have wanted to do this would have been to make use of its massive thumb spikes as formidable defensive weapons against some of the predators that shared it's European habitat during the early Cretaceous, such as Baryonyx and Neovenator.

Description

This is my repaint of the Carnegie Collection 1/40 Iguanodon.

Iguanodon was an interesting animal from an interesting stage of the Mesozoic. Iguanodon is often described in textbooks as being the "archetypical ornithopod", the name ornithopod meaning "bird foot", and referring to a large group of herbivorous dinosaurs that included both Iguanodon and it's close relatives, and also the hadrosaurs. During the early Cretaceous Iguanodon (or animals very much like it) roamed throughout Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Growing up to nine metres long, this huge animal marked something of a "changing of the guard" in the diversity of herbivorous dinosaurs, as large ornithopod plant-eaters (evolved from smaller and more and fleet footed hypsilodon-like animals) began to take over in terms of ecological importance from the massive sauropods of the Jurassic. Whereas the hypsilodon-like ornithopods were bipedal, the larger Iguanodontids and hadrosaurs would have been mostly quadrepedal, although retaining the ability to occasionally rear up on two legs if necessary. One reason Iguanodon might have wanted to do this would have been to make use of its massive thumb spikes as formidable defensive weapons against some of the predators that shared it's European habitat during the early Cretaceous, such as Baryonyx and Neovenator.