‘Mutant’ Turtles at Crystal Palace Park? The Story of the Dicynodon

 

As the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) film pounces onto British cinemas, I thought it timely to introduce you to the strange turtle-like animal statues at Crystal Palace Park — animals that you have probably already passed many times rushing to see the dinosaur statues…

These two strange animal statues (termed Dicynodon) can be found to the right-hand side of the (large) dinosaurs and the marine reptiles.  The statues are actually on the other side of the Primary Island to the Labyrinthodon, (as shown in the photograph below).  But you should be able to see them if you follow the path around.

 

Above: Photograph showing location of Dicynodon on Primary Island.

 

Above: Close -up of two Dicynodon statues

 

As you can see from the photographs, these two strange statues have shells like turtles.  But have a closer look, what else do you notice?

You should be able to see tusks, giving them a strange sabre-toothed appearance (in photo, can only be seen in one animal, but they both have them).  It is from these features, that they were named Dicynodon (from the Greek words meaning “two tusks or canine teeth”).  Now if you are a fan of prehistoric animals you have probably seen many strange creatures; the four legged carnivore with a huge sail on its back (Dimetrodon), the exotically frilled Triceratops and its kin, or the prehistoric shark with an ‘ironing board’ like spine on its back (Stethacanthus).  But you are unlikely to have seen sabre-toothed turtles. But did these animals really exist?   In order to answer this question, we need to take a look back at the history of the Dicynodon models.

The famous sculptor of the models, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, built the models under the scientific guidance of famous British anatomist, Richard Owen.  Richard Owen was particularly good at solving palaeontological puzzles, a few years earlier being able to predict the existence of a giant flightless bird (later described as the moa) from a single bone fragment alone^1,2,3.  However, in the case of these strange Dicynodon, all he really had to work with were a few skulls he was sent from South Africa (along with a few vertebrae)^4,5.  These heads were very strange indeed, showing a combination of tusks, but with the toothless beak of turtles.  So what did the rest of the bodies look like?  It seems that Owen was unwilling to reconstruct an entire body, however, judging from the lack of such reconstructions, though he did speculate that the animals were amphibious⁵.

 

Above: The skull of Dicynodon lacerticeps (from Owen 1845⁵).

 

Now, in order to breathe life into these extinct animals, and reconstruct the bodies, Hawkins would have to edge further into the dark of the “speculation zone”, even if Owen was not prepared to.  So, it seems Hawkins gave these Dicynodon statues shells.  Exactly why he did this, we can really only speculate.  This could be due to Owen’s interpretation of the animals as amphibious, or from his description of the turtle-like beaks.

We know now, that Hawkins was incorrect in giving these animals shells — the Dicynodon turns out to be more closely related to mammals (“mammal-like reptiles”).  However, perhaps we should not judge Hawkins too harshly, as what we must bear in mind is that he was working with very fragmentary material known at the time (we now have more complete material for the Dicynodon and closely related species).  More importantly, the Hawkins’ reconstructions, still standing 160 years later, are ‘living’ testaments to the changing process of science — reconstructions change with new discoveries and theories, so we can go back and question older reconstructions, or ideas critically. We can say “we have got it less wrong now”.  Ideas, like animals, evolve too.

The sabre-toothed Dicynodon, ‘mutant’ turtles no more.

 

For my more comprehensive historical look at the Dicynodon, visit the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs website, where this research was first published.  I would be happy to answer any questions related to this topic, so please leave a comment.

 

References

1. Owen, R. (1840). On the bone of an Unknown Struthious Bird from New Zealand, Meeting of November 12, 1839. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (Vol. 7, pp. 169-171).

2. Owen, R. (1843).  On the Remains of Dinornis, an Extinct Gigantic Struthious Bird.  Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (pp. 8-10).

3. Dawson, G.  On Richard Owen’s Discovery, in 1839, of the Extinct New Zealand Moa from Just a Single Bone. BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. [Last accessed 20 September 2014].

4. Bain, A. G. (1845). II.—On the Discovery of the Fossil Remains of Bidental and other Reptiles in South Africa. Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 53-59.

5. Owen, R. (1845). III.— Report on the Reptilian Fossils of South Africa: Part I.  — Description of Certain Fossil Crania, Discovered by AG Bain, Esq ., in Sandstone Rocks at the South-Eastern Extremity of Africa, Referable to Different Species of an Extinct Genus of Reptilia (Dicynodon), and Indicative of a New Tribe or Sub-order of Sauria. Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 59-84.