[martin@srv0.ems.ed.ac.uk: A misunderstood dinosaur gets back on its feet ]

[bz050@freenet.carleton.ca (Ben S. Roesch)]

    ================= Begin forwarded message =================

    From: martin@srv0.ems.ed.ac.uk (Martin Adamson)
    To: forteana@lists.primenet.com
    Subject: A misunderstood dinosaur gets back on its feet 
    Date: Fri, 08 Mar

    
    The Times      March 8 1996
                                                          BRITAIN
    
    
    
    A misunderstood dinosaur gets back on its feet 
    
                                BY TIM JONES 
    
    AFTER a century of theoretical agony, an iguanadon is to have its dignity
    restored by having its bones rearranged. 
    
    For decades, visitors to the Sedgewick Museum of Geology in Cambridge have
    gazed in awe at the 20ft-tall, 120 million-year-old fossil skeleton of the
    dinosaur. However, research by David Norman, the museum's curator and
    palaeontologist, has proved his predecessors were wrong. 
    
    His discovery, accepted by all experts in the field, proved that instead of
    rearing menacingly on its hind legs, the gentle herbivore grazed on all
    fours. Museums around the world may now remount their specimens. The Natural
    History Museum, London, remounted one of its two specimens some time ago, 
but
    kept the other upright to show how knowledge and understanding had
    progressed. 
    
    Dr Norman is hoping to raise stlg15,000 to bring the skeleton down to size 
and
    put it in accurate scientific order. "When the skeleton was discovered in 
the
    1880s people didn't have a clue what it should look like," he said."It was
    constructed with the skeletons of a kangaroo and a bird as guides and they
    created a chimera of the two. In fact it should be on all fours in a running
    pose. 
    
    "Its tail has been broken to give it a curve which shouldn't be there and 
its
    pelvic bone is on the wrong way round. Theoretically it is in agony."