page_title: Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
section_title: Cenozoic era
hierarchical_section_title: Crystal Palace Dinosaurs / The Dinosaur Park / Cenozoic era
caption_attribution_description: English: Irish Elk group - Megaloceros Giganteus from the Pleistocene - roughly 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago - or last Ice Age, part of a group of cast cement animals, principally dinosaurs made by Benjamin Hawkins in 1854 for the newly sited Crystal Palace, from the Great Exhibition, in Sydenham, London.
context_page_description: The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures of dinosaurs and other extinct animals, incorrect by modern standards, in the London borough of Bromley's Crystal Palace Park. Commissioned in 1852 to accompany the Crystal Palace after its move from the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, they were unveiled in 1854 as the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. The models were designed and sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins under the scientific direction of Sir Richard Owen, representing the latest scientific knowledge at the time. The models, also known as Dinosaur Court, were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.
  The models represent 15 genera of extinct animals, not all dinosaurs. They are from a wide range of geological ages, and include true dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs mainly from the Mesozoic era, and some mammals from the more recent Cenozoic era.
context_section_description: Anoplotherium is an extinct mammal from the Eocene to Oligocene epochs, first found near Paris. Hawkins's models draws on Owen's speculation about its camel-like appearance. Three models were made, forming a small herd.
  Megaloceros giganteus or Irish Elk is a species from the Pliocene to Pleistocene epochs in Eurasia. Hawkins built a family unit of male, female and fawn; the adult male bore antlers made from actual fossil antlers, long since replaced. Moved from the third island, they had fallen into disrepair as they were in a place easily accessible by vandals. With their original but fragile antlers, the Irish Elks were the most accurate of the models; since they are of recent geological age (dying out 11,000 years ago), Hawkins was able to model them on living deer.
  The giant ground sloth Megatherium is from the Pliocene to Pleistocene epochs in South America, where Charles Darwin had excavated some fossils in 1835. The model was built hugging a live tree which subsequently grew and broke the model's arm. The arm was replaced and later the tree died. The model depicts the sloth as having a short trunk like a tapir, something the real animal never had. This model used to be in the children's zoo which has now been demolished.
  The models of Palaeotherium represent an extinct Eocene mammal thought by Georges Cuvier to be tapir-like. They have suffered the most wear and tear of all of the models, and the standing model no longer looked much like the original made by Hawkins. During the 1960s these models were lying discarded in the bushes about fifty yards from the original site and, prior to the 2002 restoration, they were in such bad shape that they were removed and put into store. Some sources state that these models were added at a later date, but an Illustrated London News illustration of Hawkins's workshop shows them in the background. Models of the "fearfully great bird" Dinornis of New Zealand (extinct by 1500 AD), and of the extinct elephant-like Mastodon (Deinotherium) of the Miocene and Pliocene of America, were planned for the 'Tertiary Islands' but not completed.
caption: Megaloceros giganteus
exif: {"Image DateTime": "2017:03:20 08:57:26", "GPS GPSDOP": "18", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSDate": "2017:03:19", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "133", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[0, 3, 5621/100]", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "[65, 83, 67, 73, 73, 0, 0, 0, 102, 117, 115, 101, 100]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[16, 16, 10]", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "M", "GPS GPSAltitude": "78", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[51, 25, 633/100]", "Image GPSInfo": "6132", "Image Model": "Nexus 6P", "Image ImageWidth": "4032", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ImageLength": "3024", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image Software": "HDR+ 1.0.147548766n", "Image ExifOffset": "230", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image Make": "Huawei", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "252", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "189", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:03:19 16:16:18", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3", "EXIF FocalLength": "467/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "409230", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "409230", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF SubSecTime": "409230", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "917/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:03:19 16:16:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6102", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "69/10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "60", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1741/1000000"}