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London's 170-year-old dinosaurs are hilariously wrong but scientifically important [1]

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Date: 2025-08-11

Crystal Palace's concrete dinosaurs, which include beasts weighing up to 10,000 pounds, offer a fascinating glimpse into the birth of paleontology. The sculptures are completely inaccurate but wonderful nonetheless. They were created by natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in the 1850s, and were the world's first attempt to model prehistoric animals at full scale.

Scattered across artificial islands in south London, these dinosaur sculptures brought paleontology to the public, transforming fossils into tangible creatures. Working with limited fossil evidence, Hawkins created creatures that mixed reptilian and mammalian features, resembling modern animals more than prehistoric ones. Paleontologists still view these sculptures as a crucial step forward.

Today, most of Hawkins' original sculptures still stand, though time has taken its toll. A new £5 million restoration project is in the works to preserve these important artifacts of early paleontology. If you live too far from Crystal Palace to see them in person, you can take a fun virtual tour of the dinosaurs here.



See also: Cabazon dinosaur has a message for us: LOVE ONE ANOTHER

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