Iguanodon

Heaps. Archaeopteryx is known from 11 specimens, Plateosaurus is known from about 100, the Australopithecines are known from about 400 and that’s just some examples from among vertebrates. If you look at invertebrates and plants the number of specimens can climb into the thousands or even tens of thousands. Some foraminifera might be known from millions of specimens. More on reddit.com

All credit goes to Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong on youtube. It’s a fantastic channel, and their Iguanodon video explains the history of this dinosaur in great detail. But in case you don’t have an hour to spare, here’s a summary: As one of the earliest dinosaur genera to be described by science, the history of our understanding of Iguanodon is closely linked to our evolving understanding of dinosaurs as a whole. This genus has a long and complex taxonomic history, because for decades, scientists attributed many Iguanodon-like fossils from many times and places around the world to Iguanodon. Over time, most of these Iguanodon species have been recognized as separate genera or synonymized with existing species, and there are now only two accepted species of Iguanodon. The original Iguanodon was a set of strange teeth found in England in the early 19th century. After some confusion as to the identity of the teeth, it was eventually noted that they resembled those of an herbivorous lizard, only way, way too large. In 1825 (idk why the gif starts in 1834), the first description of Iguanodon (iguana tooth) was published, and the animal was basically proposed to have been a 100 foot long iguana. This may seem silly to us now, but it’s important to remember that “dinosaurs” weren’t a thing at this time; that is, the word wouldn’t be invented until 1841. Iguanodon was one of several newly discovered animals that were used to define the new group Dinosauria. The 1860s reconstruction reflects what was thought about the biology of dinosaurs at the time: that they were heavy bodied, elephantine animals with their pillar like legs held underneath them and their long tails dragging behind. It’s this depiction of Iguanodon, complete with the “nose horn”, that would be used in the famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs, which were the first ever attempt to build life-sized dinosaur models. The sculptures would help make Iguanodon and other prehistoric animals a part of pop culture for the first time. In 1878, by far the most complete remains of Iguanodon ever discovered would be found in Belgium. These fossils consisted of over 30 animals in a giant bone bed, most of them complete and fully articulated. The fossils were named Iguanodon bernissartensis, and were made the new type species of the genus. The “nose horn” was shown to actually be a thumb spike, and the front limbs were shown to be smaller than the rear limbs. This led to it being restored in a tripodal, kangaroo-like posture, thinking that it would have lived like some sort of reptilian ground sloth. While it was quickly realized that the animal could not have bent its stiff tail like that, the idea of Iguanodon as an obligate biped would persist for much longer. In the 80s and 90s it was realized that Iguanodon and many other ornithopod dinosaurs would have been facultative bipeds, spending most their time on all fours, but rearing up onto to their hind legs to run and reach for food. It’s even been hypothesized that they were mostly bipedal as babies but became increasingly quadrupedal as they grew larger. The front legs of Iguanodon, while smaller than the back, were still highly modified for load-bearing. More recent soft tissue remains of related species show that the middle three toes would have been fused into a weird hoof-like structure. The final change in the 2000s represents a general movement away from “shrink wrapping” by scientists and paleoartists as we’ve recognized that many of the skeletal features in dinosaurs would have probably been hidden in life by muscle and fat. Iguanodon in particular is thought to have had more muscular arms than its more derived relatives. AFAIK, the spines running down the back are just speculative, but a cool idea and a nice nod to the original iguana reconstruction. More on reddit.com

You've definitely got some dinosaur bones! The first photo looks like a tail vertebrae from an Iguanodon. If your still on the island, take them to the dinosaur Isle museum in Sandown to be properly Identified. Nice finds!

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