Museum Specimens

MIWG.4196 is a dinosaur bone that came into the collection over 70 years ago. It was donated by H.F. Poole in 1938, and was found nearby at Yaverland. This bone, from the large Ornithopod dinosaur called Iguanodon is called an ungual phalange; the last bone in a toe. It supports the horny sheath that makes up the claw. In this picture the other bones of the very large hind foot would lie to the left. The fossil is about 19 centimetres long, and is currently on display at Dinosaur Isle.

First described by Gideon Mantell back in 1825, Iguanodon represents one of the first dinosaurs to be identified, although the first complete skeletons were not found until 1878 in Belgium. The many footcasts and footprints to be found around the Island’s southern coasts are mainly from this large herd animal.

Although many of the fossils that come into the collection are found as a result of coastal storms slowly eating into the Island's eroding coastline it is sometimes possible to find fossils inland. This sea urchin was found at Week Farm and donated by R. Perry in 1992.

Sea urchins are marine animals that graze the sea floor; they are still in existence today, and can be found in water depths ranging from shallow shorelines to the deepest of oceans.  This fossil is almost 90 million years old, and has been named Micraster coranguinum. It comes from the Upper Cretaceous Chalk, and is a dedicated 'zone' fossil - so it can be used to identify the geology it is found in. The specimen is MIWG.6828. The scale bar is 2cm long.

This vertebra, with its long neural spine, is from a large ornithopod dinosaur called Iguanodon atherfieldensis. It was found by collector Kieth Simmonds and staff member Steve Hutt in 1987 in the Wessex Formation muds of Brighstone Bay.

It forms part of a partial skeleton which exhibited some strange anomolies in some of the preserved bone. This dinosaur has sometimes been referred to as the 'pathological iguanodon'. This species of Iguanodon is more 'gracile' than its neighbour Iguanodon bernissartensis, so it has recently been suggested that it be given a new genus name of its own 'Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis'. The specimen is MIWG.6344. The scale bar is 5cm long.

This is a small slab of rock with a collection of fossil gastropods called Turritella dixoni from the London Clay Formation (Thames Group) of Alum Bay.

The fossil was first described by Deshayes in 1861.

The name Turritella means 'Turret shell'. The specimen is catalogued as MIWG.3590.

The original animal had a soft body housed in a long pointed shell case. It lived on the muddy, and soft sandy, shallow sea-floor that covered the Isle of Wight over 50 million years ago. The scale bar is 2 centimetres long. The fossil shells lie roughly parallel to each, so may have been rolled together by gentle water currents after the animals died.

Caudal vertebra (probably No. 2) from the tail of the 7.5 metre long theropod dinosaur Neovenator salerii.

Neovenator has so far only been found on the Isle of Wight, from the lower Cretaceous sediments of the Wessex Formation.

The black scale bar is 5.5 centimetres long. The vertebra is on display with a reconstruction of the full size animal at Dinosaur Isle. This particualar vertebra was excavated by collector Kieth Simmonds and Steve Hutt from the Museum of Isle of Wight Geology.

The initial remains were found in 1978 by a group of holiday makers, in 1984 more bones were found by staff of the Museum of Isle of Wight Geology. Further excavations, along with local collector Keith Simmonds, revealed more bones.

Some parts went to the British Museum in London (now the Natural History Museum), whilst others remained on the Island. Extensive research by Steve Hutt revealed that the two sets of objects (catalogued as R10001 by the Natural History Museum, and as MIWG.6348 by the Island museum) were part of a new type of carnivorous dinosaur. Steve gave it the name Neovenator salerii ('Neovenator' = new hunter, 'salerii' comes from the name of the Salero family who owned the land the dinosaur came from).

Further research on this important specimen continues.