BBC Knowledge Asia Edition

ack in October 2015, a new

dinosaur was revealed from

the 66-million-year-old Hell

Creek formation in South Dakota, USA.

Colourful pictures of this swift, bipedal

predator – covered in feathers and with a

jaw full of sharp teeth – were published

around the world.

Experts behind the discovery

reported that Dakotaraptor had large,

sickle-shaped claws on the second toes

of its hind feet, and would have been

about five metres long and slightly taller

than a human. This made it one of the

largest ever dromaeosaurs (‘swift

seizers’), the group to which

Velociraptor also belongs. We take

these kinds of reconstructions for

granted these days, but just how realistic

are they, and how do we know what

dinosaurs really looked like?

The first attempts by humans to

imagine the animals that left fossils or

footprints of themselves behind were in

prehistory, and there are hints that

dinosaur remains made it into many

ancient mythologies. Dragons appeared in

Chinese texts as far back as 1100BC, and

may have been influenced by dinosaur

ignominious title of Scrotum humanum

• a label given by British physician
  Richard Brookes to the broken end of
  a femur in 1763, believing it to be the
  fossilised testicles of a Biblical giant. We
  now know that the leg bone belonged
  to a Megalosaurus – correctly described
  as an extinct reptile by William
  Buckland in 1824. You cannot entirely
  blame Brookes for his conclusions, as
  dinosaurs would not be described as a
  group until 1842. That was when
  Richard Owen, head of what is now
  the Natural History Museum, revealed
  to the world a new class of strange,
  extinct creatures he called dinosaurs,
  g fearfully great reptiles’.
  gined Iguanodon, Megalosau s
  a dHy osaurus to be reptiles with leg
  s out to the sides, with scaly gr
  g kin: something like modern
  l d crocodiles. In 1854 artist
  j Waterhouse Hawkins create
  culptures of these animals as
  y Owen, and you can still se
  isplay in Crystal Palace Park
  s don. Visit them and you will
  see they look very different to
  how we depict dinosaurs today.

PHOTO: GETTY, ALAMY, EMILY WILLOUGHBY

bones. Similarly, griffins – beasts that

combine an eagle with a lion – are

known from Ancient Greece as early as

700BC; the inspiration may have come

from fossils of the beaked dinosaur

Protoceratops, remains of which are still

found in the deserts of Central Asia today.

When ancient people were faced

with strange bones, they did exactly

what we do today, and used the best

knowledge available to reconstruct the

creatures that left them behind.

Sometimes this resulted in poor

conclusions. The first name assigned in

print to any dinosaur remains was the

The dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park look quite different to

how we visualise the animals today

led

,

aurus

egs

rey

ed

s

ee

k in

ill

WHAT

DINOSAURS

Today we take the appearance of dinosaurs for granted,

but it has taken centuries of careful study to learn how to

accurately read the clues in the fossil record

BY JOHN PICKRELL

LOOKED LIKE

B

et ctce

meaning ‘

He imag

and Hylaeo

sprawled o

or green sk

lizards or c

Benjamin W

life-sized sc

directed by

these on di

south Lond

h l

HOW DO WE KNOW?