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1.1. The Sainte-Barbe pit and mine buildings in
1878, at the time when the iguanodons were
discovered.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons:
Historical Perspective and New Investigations
Pascal Godefroit*, Johan Yans, and Pierre Bultynck
The discovery of complete and articulated skeletons of Iguanodon at Bernis-
sart in came at a time when the anatomy of dinosaurs was still poorly
understood, and thus considerable advances were made possible. Here we
briey describe, mainly from documents in the archives of the Royal Bel-
gian Institute of Natural Sciences, the circumstances of the discovery of the
Bernissart iguanodons. We also provide information about their prepara-
tion and mounting in laboratories, for exhibitions, and in early studies. We
also summarize the latest results of a multidisciplinary project dedicated to
the material collected in the cores drilled in – in and around the
Iguanodon Sinkhole at Bernissart.
The discovery of the rst Iguanodon fossils has become a legend in the
small world of paleontology. Around , Mary Ann Mantell accompanied
her husband, the physician Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell, on his medical
rounds and by chance discovered large fossilized teeth. Her husband found
the teeth intriguing. With advice from Georges Cuvier, William Clift, and
William Daniel Conybeare, he described them and named them Iguan-
odon, “iguana tooth,” because of their supercial resemblance to those of
living iguanas (Mantell, ). Iguanodon was one the three founding mem-
bers of the Dinosauria—along with Megalosaurus and Hylaeosaurus—
named by Richard Owen in .
For years, little was known about Iguanodon and other dinosaurs.
Mantell imagined these antediluvian animals to be some kind of giant
lizards with elongated bodies and sprawling limbs (Benton, ). In ,
the sculptor Waterhouse Hawkins, following Owen’s advice, realized full-
size reconstructions of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus for the Crystal Palace
exhibition in London. Iguanodon was reconstructed as a rhinoceros-like
heavy quadruped with a large spike on its nose. These impressive monsters
invoked the rst public sensation over dinosaurs (Norman, ).
The rst partial dinosaur skeleton, named Hadrosaurus foulkii Leidy,
, was discovered in in New Jersey. This skeleton was reconstructed
in a bipedal gait at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, but
many questions were still left unanswered about the general appearance
of dinosaurs.
Then, years later, another Iguanodon discovery broke the scientic
world—and the dinosaur world—wide open (Forster, ). The discovery
of complete and articulated skeletons of Iguanodon at Bernissart in
revealed for the rst time the anatomy of dinosaurs, and thus consider-
able advances were made possible, in combination with the remarkable
The Bernissart Iguanodons:
A Cornerstone in the
History of Paleontology
1
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Godefroit et al.
4
discoveries in the American Midwest described by Marsh and Cope
(Norman, ).
Many manuscripts and plans relating to the original excavations at
Bernissart are preserved in the paleontological archives of the , which
allow us to reconstruct the circumstances of the discovery of these fantastic
dinosaurs.
Institutional abbreviations. , The Natural History Museum,
London (formerly the British Museum [Natural History]), U.K.; ,
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels (formerly ,
Musée royal d’Histoire naturelle de Belgique), Belgium.
Bernissart is a former coal-mining village in southwestern Belgium, situated
km south of Mons and less than km from the Franco-Belgian frontier. Pre-
industrial coal extraction began at Bernissart around (Delguste, ).
In , Duke Emmanuel de Croÿ grouped together the different coal com-
panies in northern France into the powerful Anzin Company, which started
the industrial exploitation of the coal in the Bernissart area during the second
half of the eighteenth century (Delguste, ). In the nineteenth century,
the Bernissart Coal Board Limited Company dug ve coal pits on Bernissart
territory. The Négresse pit (no. , exploited from ) and Sainte-Barbe pit
(no. , exploited from ; Fig. .) were used for coal extraction and coupled
with the Moulin pit (no. , exploited from ) for ventilation. The Sainte-
Catherine pit (no. , exploited from ) was the third extraction pit and was
coupled with pit no. (exploited from ?) for ventilation. The maximum
distance between pits and was about , m. With a depth of m, the
Sainte-Barbe pit was the deepest. In spite of a rather archaic technology, the
daily production for the three extraction pits was about tons. However,
the ood problems were more important than in other coal mines from the
Mons area; steam pumps were used to extract the water.
On February , , miners digging a horizontal exploration gallery
m below ground level suddenly encountered, m to the south of
the Luronne seam, disturbed rocks, indicating that they were penetrating
inside a vertical cran—a local term meaning a pit formed by natural col-
lapse through the coal seams that was lled especially with clayey deposits
normally located above the coal measures.
On March , chief overseer Cyprien Ballez, engineer Léon Latinis,
and mine director Gustave Fagès went down into the Sainte-Barbe pit to
evaluate the situation. It was decided to traverse this cran and to rejoin the
coal seam on the other side. Overseer Motuelle and miners Jules Créteur
and Alphonse Blanchard were put in charge of continuing the exploration
gallery through the perturbed layers of the cran. On March , Ballez no-
ticed that the exploration gallery was still in the perturbed zone of the cran.
In March, the miners had already collected dinosaur remains: fragmen-
tary bones and teeth, which are labeled “remains of the rst Iguanodon,
March ” and are housed in the paleontological collections of the
. But they apparently paid little attention to these discoveries, believ-
ing that they were just fossil wood.
On April , the exploration team again entered nondisturbed but in-
clined formations. On April , Ballez and Latinis went down again together
The Discovery and Excavation
of the Bernissart Iguanodons
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 5
in the exploration gallery. The engineer estimated that they had again
reached coal-bearing formations. Latinis’s explanations apparently did not
satisfy Fagès. Indeed, the mine manager decided to accompany the engi-
neer and the chief overseer in the exploration gallery on April . While
inspecting the deposits, Fagès found a long object with an oval cross sec-
tion and a brous texture. Latinis believed that it was a fossil oak branch.
Conversely, Fagès ironically asserted that it was a rib of Father Adam.
Miner Jules Créteur mentioned that he had already found a larger fossil,
and the team soon unearthed limb bones in the gallery. In the evening,
miners brought several fragments of these fossils to Café Dubruille. There
the local doctor, Lhoir, who also worked for the coal mine, burned one of
the fragments and conrmed that the fossils collected by the miners were
bones, not wood. Many new fossils were discovered by the miners in the
night of April –. On April , Fagès ordered Ballez to bring all the frag-
ments of bones that the miners had collected to the surface and to lock up
the end of the gallery.
On Sunday, April , Latinis was commissioned to go to Mons to show
the fossils to the well-known geologist François-Léopold Cornet. But Cor-
net was not home. Latinis thus left the fossils to his young son, Jules (a
future renowned geologist), and asked him to tell his father that these bones
had been found in the Sainte-Barbe pit at Bernissart.
On April , F.-L. Cornet came to Bernissart and briey discussed the
Bernissart discovery with Latinis. He could not meet Fagès, who was with
Ballez in the Sainte-Catherine pit. On April , Cornet told the zoologist
Pierre-Joseph Van Beneden, professor of paleontology at Leuven University,
that Latinis, who was a former student of Van Beneden, had discovered fos-
sil bones at Bernissart, and he sent him some of the bones that Latinis had
left with his son. Van Beneden quickly identied the teeth as belonging
to the dinosaur Iguanodon, previously described from Wealden deposits
in England.
On April , Fagès went to Mons to meet the chief mining engineer,
Gustave Arnould, who immediately sent a telegram to Edouard Dupont,
director of the Musée royal d’Histoire naturelle de Belgique () at
Brussels to inform him of the important discovery at m below ground
level in the Sainte-Barbe Pit (Fig. .).
On Saturday, April , Louis De Pauw, head preparer at the and
a man who already had extensive experience in the excavation and prepa-
ration of fossil vertebrates, met Arnould at Blaton. They went together to
Bernissart. Fagès showed them the bones recently found in the gallery; De
Pauw recognized two ungual phalanges and one vertebral centrum. It was
then decided to go down together into the fossiliferous gallery. De Pauw
() reported that the walls of the exploration gallery were completely
covered by fossil bones, plants, and shes. Ballez, Motuelle, Créteur, and
Blanchard soon unearthed a complete hind limb that they transported on
a plank covered with straw. But after a -m walk, the bones began to
disintegrate on contact with the fresh air of the mine galleries. De Pauw
protected the biggest remaining fragment with his own clothes, and Ballez
and Motuelle brought the fossils to the surface. De Pauw realized that the
presence of pyrite inside the bones was one of the biggest problems that
they had to face if they were to unearth the fossils from the Sainte-Barbe pit.
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Godefroit et al.
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He packed the collected bones in a box full of sawdust and brought them
back to Brussels. In workshops, he succeeded in solidifying the limb
bones from Bernissart with gelatin. In the meantime, Latinis prepared
more boxes full of fossils at Bernissart.
Fagès quickly gathered together the board of directors of the Bernis-
sart Coal Board Limited Company. They decided to donate the fossils
discovered in the Sainte-Barbe pit to the Belgian state and to notify
Charles Delcour, minister of the interior, and Edouard Dupont, direc-
tor of the , about this decision. But the excavations could not
immediately begin because the team was busy preparing for the
Paris World’s Fair.
De Pauw settled in Bernissart on May , and the excavations be-
gan on Wednesday, May . The excavation team included one warder
(M.Sonnet) and one molder (A.Vandepoel) from the , six miners
(J.Créteur, A.Blanchard, J.Gérard, E.Saudemont, D.Lesplingart, and
Dieudonné), and the overseers Ballez, Mortuelle, and Pierrard. Every day
from : in the morning until : in the afternoon, the team went down
into the Sainte-Barbe pit. The excavation method De Pauw created proved
to be efcient and is still used today during paleontological excavations.
Each Iguanodon skeleton was split into pieces. The exposed bones were
rst covered by wet paper or liquid clay and coated by a layer of plaster of
Paris. The fossils were then undercut in a bed of matrix and the reverse
side plastered. The block was then reinforced with either strips of wood or
1.2. Telegram of April 12, 1878. Translation:
“Important discovery of bones in coalfield fault
Bernissart decomposing due to pyrite. Send De
Pauw tomorrow to arrive Mons station 8 a.m.
Shall be there. Urgent. Gustave Arnaut.”
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 7
1.3. A, Drawing by G. Lavalette in 1883 of
specimen “L” (RBINS R56) of Iguanodon bernis-
sartensis, as discovered in the Sainte-Barbe pit.
B,Drawing by G. Lavalette in 1882 of specimen
“T” (RBINS R57) of Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis,
as discovered in Sainte-Barbe pit. C, Sketch of the
assemblage of plaster blocks containing pieces
into which specimen “T” (RBINS R57) was divided
for raising to the surface. Block “1T” contains
the skull and “5T,” the end of the tail of this
individual.
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Godefroit et al.
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steel, then coated with a second layer of plaster. After being sketched and
cataloged (Fig. .), the blocks were carried to the surface. Every afternoon,
from :, the team collected fossils on the coal tip in sediments previously
extracted from the pit (De Pauw, ).
In August , a big earthquake blocked the excavation team for
hours in the gallery m below ground level. This gallery was subse-
quently ooded, and on Tuesday, October , the team was forced to aban-
don their work for several months. The tools and the last fossiliferous blocks
had to be left behind in the ooded galleries. At that time, ve skeletons of
Iguanodon had already been discovered, although only that of “A” (
--) had been excavated completely.
Between October and April , individual “A” was prepared
and mounted in the museum workshop at the St. Georges Chapel of Nas-
sau Palace. The front part of this specimen had been destroyed during the
original gallery excavations. This was one of the earliest mounted skeletons
of associated dinosaur remains (Norman, ; Fig. .).
In the meantime, Antoine Sohier replaced Latinis as engineer in the
Bernissart Coal Board Limited Company and received the task of repair-
ing the damaged galleries and replacing the old wooden shaft lining of the
Sainte-Barbe pit with a cast iron one (see Sohier, ). Since the discovery
of the rst fossils in the Sainte-Barbe pit, the relations between Fagès and
Latinis were characterized by conict. Latinis was regularly dressed down
because he did not regularly inspect the galleries. Latinis was apparently
absent without leave when the gallery collapsed after the earthquake, and
Fagès held him responsible for the collapse.
The excavations restarted on May , . De Pauw was accompanied
by four members of the team (M.Sonnet, A.Collard, and A. and
L.Vandepoel) and by the same miners as in . J.Créteur was the rst
to nd the abandoned tools and blocks in the gallery at −m (Fig. .A).
The excavations proceeded with great success, resulting in the removal of
more or less complete and four partial skeletons of iguanodontids, two
Bernissartia (a dwarf crocodile) skeletons, one “Goniopholis” (larger croco-
dile) skeleton, two turtles, and innumerable shes and plant remains. From
this rst concentration of fossils, the gallery at the -m level was extended
horizontally for about m in an east–southeast direction across the cran,
passing through an area where the stratied sediments were almost hori-
zontal but apparently devoid of large vertebrate remains. On October ,
, another Goniopholis specimen was discovered at about m from the
entrance of the cran. A further eight well-preserved Iguanodon skeletons
were discovered between and m from the entrance before reaching
its opposite side (Fig. .B).
In , a new horizontal gallery was dug at a depth of −m. The
miners also encountered fossiliferous clays, but the diameter of the cran
was extremely restricted (approximately m) at this level. Three more ar-
ticulated skeletons were recovered from this third series of excavations (Fig.
.C). The clayey layers had completely disappeared m below.
After three years of excavations at Bernissart, about blocks, weigh-
ing a total of more than tonnes, were transported to Brussels in furniture
removal vans, each of tonnes’ capacity.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 9
The excavations at Bernissart were particularly expensive for the Bel-
gian state (about , francs in modern currency), and the government
had already allocated two extraordinary grants. In , the expenses in-
volved by this enterprise were considered too high by the Belgian govern-
ment, and the excavations were stopped. Members of parliament suggested
that an Iguanodon skeleton should be sold abroad to defray expenses, but
public outcry prevented this transaction.
During World War I, the German occupation authorities decided to
start new excavations at Bernissart (see Roolf, Chapter in this book). The
plans, revealed in documents captured after the liberation of Belgium,
indicated that a new gallery was to be excavated at −m. The explora-
tion gallery was stopped on October , , m in front of the border of
1.4. Mounting, in 1878, of the first Iguanodon
specimen (specimen “A,” RBINS VERT-5144-1716)
in the St. Georges Chapel, or Nassau Chapel,
assembly workshop of the MRHNB. This room is
now an exhibition hall in the Albert I Royal Library,
Brussels. To the left of the iguanodon’s hind limb
can be seen the skeletons of a kangaroo and
a cassowary, used as models in assembling the
skeleton.
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Godefroit et al.
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the cran. Unfortunately, the newly excavated tunnel collapsed when the
occupying forces withdrew.
On January , , Albert Anciaux, then the director general of the
colliery at Bernissart, sent a letter to Gustave Gilson (the director of the
after Edouard Dupont), complaining that the costs of the aborted
excavation in Bernissart between and , which were entirely borne
by the colliery owners, amounted to , francs. The Belgian government
reimbursed these expenses in May (Gosselin, ).
1.5. Plan views of the excavations at Bernissart,
with the skeletons restored in their original loca-
tions (adapted by Norman 1986 from original
archived documents in RBINS). Not all the letter/
number-coded individuals are now identifiable in
the collections. A, First series at −322m; B, sec-
ond series at −322m on the east–southeast side
of the cran; C, third series at −356m. Abbrevia-
tions: Be, the small crocodile Bernissartia; Go, the
larger crocodile “Goniopholis”; ch, turtles.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 11
After the war, the extraction pits were put again into exploitation at
Bernissart. But coal extraction at Bernissart was no longer nancially viable,
even as the mining activities at the neighboring Harchies colliery became
highly protable.
On September , Anciaux informed Gilson that for reasons of econ-
omy, the water pumps and ventilators at the Sainte-Barbe pit would had to
be removed and the pit abandoned, unless funds could be found elsewhere.
The director of the Bernissart colliery proposed two solutions to maintain
the paleontological research activities in Sainte-Barbe pit and estimated
the annual maintenance costs: ,, or , francs, depending on
the solution that was chosen. G. Gilson approached the Belgian govern-
ment and private sponsors to nd nancial support. Despite national and
international appeals, the Sainte-Barbe pit was denitively closed at the
end of October .
At the beginning of the s, Jules Destrée, then minister without
portfolio and senator, again requested that the Belgian government release
million francs to restart excavations at Bernissart. The moment was badly
chosen, thanks to the dramatic consequences of the stock market crash
on the Belgian economy, particularly on the collieries.
According to Gosselin (), the German occupation authorities
again tried to start excavations at Bernissart between and . They
took maps and documents necessary for a new exploitation of the fossilifer-
ous site away from André Capart (then a section director at the ) and
De Pauw’s son. However, we did not nd any document in the archives of
the that could corroborate this hypothesis.
From onward, once the excavations at Bernissart had ceased, museum
preparation proceeded rapidly. Once the Iguanodon blocks arrived in Brus-
sels, they were stored in the museum workshop, housed in the St. Georges
Chapel of Nassau Palace, now preserved as an exhibition hall in the Albert
I Royal Library. De Pauw () described in detail the preparation of the
Iguanodon skeletons. The plastered blocks were exposed on their upper
surface (the surface containing the bones exposed in the gallery) by re-
moving the protective casing of plaster of Paris. Then a wall of plaster was
constructed around the block and a hot glue mixture, diluted with alcohol
and saturated with arsenic, was poured on top. De Pauw believed that the
arsenic was able to “kill” the pyrite. Excess glue mixture was cleaned off
and the block hardened in a drying room. The reverse side of the block
was then prepared with a cold chisel to remove the plaster and the matrix,
and the glue mixture was applied on this side. The pyrite was systematically
curetted from the bones. Some vertebrae contained more than kg of py-
rite. The remaining cavities were lled with carton-pierre, a stable mixture
of paper, glue, and talc.
It was decided to mount the best preserved Iguanodon specimens
in a lifelike gait. In , the rst complete specimen (individual “Q,”
R, the holotype of Iguanodon bernissartensis) was assembled and
mounted by L. De Pauw and his team in the St. Georges Chapel. The
bones were suspended from scaffolding by ropes that could be adjusted
so as to obtain the most lifelike position for the complete skeleton, which
Preparation, Mounting,
and Exhibition of the
Bernissart Iguanodons
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Godefroit et al.
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was then supported by an iron framework (Fig. .). This rst mounted
specimen was publicly exhibited in in a glass cage constructed in the
interior court of Nassau Palace. In , the cage was lengthened to accom-
modate a second specimen (individual “T,” R, the only complete
specimen of Mantellisaurus athereldensis) and a selection of fossils of the
Bernissart ora and fauna (Fig. .).
But the Nassau Palace chapel quickly became too small for the storage,
preparation, mounting, and exhibition of these numerous and bulky skel-
etons. In , the iguanodons were transported to a new location: the Royal
Museum of Natural History in Leopold Park. In , ve specimens were
mounted in a glass cage close to the entrance of the museum. From
onward, the whole Bernissart exhibition was permanently installed in the
newly constructed Janlet Wing of the . Eleven complete specimens
1.6. Mounting in 1882 of the first complete
Iguanodon specimen (specimen “Q,” RBINSR51,
the holotype of I. bernissartensis) in the St.
Georges Chapel. The bearded figure closest to the
specimen is L.De Pauw.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 13
were exhibited in a lifelike gait, while more or less complete and eight
fragmentary individuals were presented as an en gisement display (Fig. .).
Between and , the Iguanodon skeletons were dismantled and
treated because years of changes in temperature and humidity had dam-
aged them. The bones were soaked in a mixture of alcohol and shellac, a
natural lacquer secreted by coccid insects. The specimens were installed
into two large glass cages to stabilize the temperature and humidity of their
environment (Fig. .).
During World War II, all the specimens were again dismantled and
stocked in the cellars of the museum, for fear of aerial bombings. But the
humidity was too much for these fragile fossils, which were again mounted
in the exhibition hall before the end of the war (Bultynck, ).
From to , the ’s Janlet Wing was renovated. On this
occasion, the iguanodon skeletons were again completely restored. All
the bones were reinforced by a solution of synthetic polyvinyl acetate in
acetone and alcohol (known by the trade name Mowilith). New glass cages
were constructed to protect the skeletons (Fig. .).
From the beginning, E. Dupont and G. Fagès had friendly relations. Du-
pont expressed his gratitude to Fagès, who had accepted the care of the
Bernissart fossils for the , and Dupont did everything in his power to
The Study of the
Bernissart Iguanodons
1.7. First two complete specimens of Bernissart
iguanodons exhibited in the interior court of the
Nassau Palace, Brussels, in 1884. Left, holotype
specimen of Iguanodon bernissartensis (individual
“Q,” RBINS R51); right, complete specimen of
Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis (individual “T,”
RBINS R57).
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Godefroit et al.
14
atter Fagès. In , he suggested to the minister of the interior that Fagès
be decorated with the Order of Leopold, the highest distinction in Belgium.
Dupont even invited Fagès and his wife to celebrate Christmas in his
home! (They politely refused.) The explanatory label at the feet of the rst
mounted specimen in the interior court of Nassau Palace mentioned that
it was “discovered in in Bernissart colliery by M.Fagès, director of the
society.” This label irritated P.-J. Van Beneden, who thought that he ought
to be credited with rst discovering the iguanodons because it was he who
had rst identied the fossils as belonging to the genus Iguanodon and who
had published the rst scientic note about these dinosaurs (Van Beneden,
). It was the start of an epic, although completely futile, dispute be-
tween Van Beneden and Dupont over the authorship of the Bernissart
iguanodons during noisy sessions of the Academy of Sciences in . As
a consequence of these disputes, Dupont insisted that Van Beneden give
the handful of bones that Cornet had sent to him in April back to the
. Of course, Van Beneden refused, and the relations between the
director of the and the professor at Leuven University continued
to deteriorate.
A third contentious point, again involving P. J. Van Beneden, con-
cerned the species that had been discovered at Bernissart: did it belong to a
new species or to Iguanodon mantelli, already described from disarticulated
specimens discovered in England? Just after the discovery of the Bernis-
sart iguanodons, Dupont had asked the young naturalist Georges Albert
Boulenger to study these specimens. In , Boulenger presented his rst
1.8. The Bernissart iguanodons, mounted in life-
like gait, in the Janlet Wing of the MRHNB in the
early 1930s.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 15
results to the Belgian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts. He de-
scribed the anatomy of the pelvis of these dinosaurs and proposed that the
greater number of sacral vertebrae (six) in the Bernissart form, as opposed
to the ve sacral vertebrae in I.mantelli, merited the establishment of a
new species that he named Iguanodon bernissartensis. Unfortunately, this
paper was refused publication, although a brief, highly critical review of
Boulenger’s paper was published by Van Beneden (), then president of
the science section of the academy, who claimed that observed anatomical
differences were most probably attributable to sexual dimorphism and that
the Bernissart iguanodons belonged to Iguanodon mantelli. Shortly after-
ward, in , Boulenger accepted a post at the British Museum (Natural
History), and in , study of the Bernissart iguanodons was entrusted
to Louis Dollo, a mining engineer of French origin who eventually be-
came a Belgian citizen and who entirely devoted his career to vertebrate
paleontology at the .
Between and , Dollo (a, b, a, b, c, ,
a, b, , , ) published many preliminary notes on the
Bernissart fauna, especially on Iguanodon. While studying in detail several
parts of the Iguanodon skeleton, Dollo began to adopt a forensic approach
to understanding these fossils. He developed a new style of paleontology
that became known as paleobiology—paleontology expanded to investigate
1.9. The Bernissart iguanodons, presented in an
en gisement display in the Janlet Wing of the
RBINS in the early 2000s.
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Godefroit et al.
16
the biology, and by implication the ecology and behavior, of extinct crea-
tures. The rst paper (Dollo, a) examined the basis for the creation
of the new species, I.bernissartensis, as distinct from I.mantelli. Dollo
established an overall similarity in anatomy between the smaller and more
gracile species from Bernissart ( R) and the remains of the “Mantel-
piece” ( ), and therefore by convention identied R
as Iguanodon mantelli (Norman, ). With respect to the larger species,
Dollo (a) circumvented the problems of sexual dimorphism in the
sacral count by demonstrating a wider range of additional anatomic differ-
ences: skull proportions, size of narial openings, shape of the orbit, size and
shape of the infratemporal openings, shape of scapular blade, completeness
of external coracoid foramen and overall shape of the coracoid, size of the
humerus, proportions of the manus and pollex, and shape of the anterior
pubic blade. Dollo nally concluded that they merited being considered
a separate species.
Dollo’s nal contribution to the Iguanodon story was published in
as a synthetic study to honor the centenary of Mantell’s original pa-
per. He identied Iguanodon as an ecological equivalent of the giraffe. Its
kangaroo-like posture enabled it to reach high into the trees to gather its
fodder, which it was able to draw into its mouth with its long, muscular
tongue. The sharp beak was used to nip off tough stems, while the teeth
served to pulp the food before it was swallowed. This image of Iguanodon
as a gigantic kangaroo-style creature, as depicted by Dollo, has become
1.10. A new cage for the Bernissart iguanodons
in 2007.
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Bernissart and the Iguanodons 17
iconic during more than years and was reinforced by the distribution of
full-size replicas of mounted skeletons of Iguanodon from Brussels to many
of the great museums around the world (Norman, ).
In , British paleontologist D. Norman published a monograph on
Iguanodon bernissartensis. He described the skeleton with the precision
required nowadays. Functional analysis of the skeleton revealed that the
vertebral column, stiffened by a network of ossied tendons, was held more
or less horizontal while the animal was walking or running. Norman also
believed that I.bernissartensis was mainly quadrupedal. The structure of
the pectoral girdle, the ratios of the forelimb and hind limb lengths, the
strongly fused carpal bones, and the presence of hooike unguals on the
middle three digits of the hand suggested that the adult of I.bernissartensis
spent most of its time in a quadrupedal posture, although juveniles had a
predominantly bipedal mode of life.
In , Norman described the small Iguanodon species from Bernis-
sart and concluded that it belonged to Iguanodon athereldensis Hooley,
, a species previously described from the Wealden Beds of the Isle of
Wight. Moreover, he stressed that the former name for it, Iguanodon man-
telli, is a nomen dubium as a result of the fragmentary preservation of the
type material of that species.
On the occasion of the mounting of an Iguanodon bernissartensis cast
in a quadrupedal position at the in , Bultynck discussed in a short
paper the posture and gait of this species.
It is also worth mentioning that many specialists undertook the study
of the other fossils found at Bernissart: C.E. Bertrand () and G. Poinar
Jr. and A.J. Boucot () for coprolites, A. Lameere and G. Severin ()
for insects, R.H. Traquair () and L. Taverne (, , ) for shes,
Buffetaut () and M.A. Norell and J.M. Clark () for the crocodile
Bernissartia fagesii, and A. C. Seward (), K.L. Alvin (, , ,
), and F. Stockmans () for plants.
In –, three new boreholes were drilled within and around the
Iguanodon Sinkhole at Bernissart. Initially, the aim of this drilling program
was to evaluate the chances of nding more fossils, to understand the gen-
esis of the Iguanodon Sinkhole, and to test a seismic geophysical technique
for ground imaging (Tshibangu et al., a, b). In October ,
the drilling program started with a completely cored well (named )
using the PQ wireline technique. reached .m of Thanetian,
Late Cretaceous, Early Cretaceous, and Westphalian sediments (Yans et
al., b; Yans, ). During these operations, various parameters were
recorded: rate of penetration, core recovery, and brief core descriptions
(Tshibangu et al., a, b). provided exceptional material to
improve our knowledge of the iguanodon-bearing Wealden facies, with
multidisciplinary research funded by - ( no. ....F).
Another borehole ( ) was also cut into the Wealden facies (Spagna
and Van Itterbeeck, ).
The formation processes of the Iguanodon Sinkhole were documented
by sedimentological studies of the lacustrine Wealden facies (including
clay mineralogy, granulometry, and magnetic susceptibility; Spagna et al.,
New Boreholes within the
Iguanodon Sinkhole
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Godefroit et al.
18
; Spagna et al., Chapter in this book) and by characterization of the
organic matter with Rock-eval, palynofacies, soluble alkane content, and
carbon isotope and structural analyses (Schnyder et al., ). Schnyder
et al. () suggested two steps in the life of the lacustrine Wealden facies
of Bernissart: a rst step with a large supply of plant debris, and a second
step with active algal/bacterial activity with amorphous organic matter,
which followed the lake’s level variations. The paleontological content
was studied using paleohistology (de Ricqlès and Yans, ; de Ricqlès et
al., Chapter in this book) and diagenesis of the bone fragments (Leduc,
Chapter in this book), characterization of amber, and preparations for
diatom and ostracod analyses, which were unfortunately barren (C. Cornet,
pers. comm.; B. Andreu, pers. comm.). A late Late Barremian to earliest
Aptian age was estimated for the iguanodon-bearing sediments by both
palynology and chemostratigraphy (Yans et al., a, , ; Dejax
et al., a; Yans et al., Chapter in this book), which permitted a better
knowledge of the initial steps of the subsidence in the Mons Basin (Spagna
et al., ). Moreover, Wealden facies samples from the collection
(historical searches of –) and other localities in the Mons Basin
(Hautrage, Thieu, Baudour) were also investigated. Rare dinosaur fossils
are described from the Baudour Clays Formation (Godefroit et al., Chapter
in this book). Palynology and determination of wood and plant mesofos-
sil fragments provide further information about the paleoenvironment of
the Mons Basin during the Early Cretaceous (Gerards et al., , ;
Dejax et al., b, ; Gomez et al., ; Gomez et al., Chapter in
this book). In Thieu, the occurrence of dinoagellate cysts suggests marine
inuences in the Wealden facies of the Eastern part of the Mons Basin
(Yans et al., ). These data were integrated into the Early Cretaceous
geological context of Northwest Europe (Thiry et al., ; Quinif et al.,
). Studies are still in progress ...
Alvin, K. L. . Three abietaceous
cones from the Wealden of Belgium.
Mémoires de l’Institut Royal des Sci-
ences naturelles de Belgique : –.
. . On the two cones Pseudo-
araucaria heeri (Coemans) n. comb.
and Pityostrobus villerotensis n. sp. from
the Wealden of Belgium. Mémoires de
l’Institut Royal des Sciences naturelles
de Belgique : –.
. . Further conifers of the Pina-
ceae from the Wealden formation of
Belgium. Mémoires de l’Institut Royal
des Sciences naturelles de Belgique :
–.
. . Weichselia reticulata (Stokes
et Webb) Fontaine from the Wealden of
Belgium. Mémoires de l’Institut Royal
des Sciences naturelles de Belgique :
–.
Benton, M. J. . On the trail of the
dinosaurs. Crescent Books, New York,
pp.
Bertrand, C. E. . Les coprolithes de
Bernissart. . Les coprolithes qui ont été
attribués aux iguanodons. Mémoires
du Musée royal d’Histoire naturelle de
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Buffetaut, E. . Sur l’anatomie et la
position systématique de Bernissartia
fagesii Dollo, L. , crocodilien du
Wealdien de Bernissart, Belgique. Bul-
letin de l’Institut Royal des Sciences
Naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la
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Bultynck, P. . Bernissart et les Iguan-
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des Sciences naturelles de Belgique,
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. . An assesssment of posture
and gait in Iguanodon bernissartensis
Boulenger, . Bulletin de l’Institut
Royal des Sciences Naturelles de
Belgique, Sciences de la Terre :
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