(CNN) -
South London's Crystal Palace Park continues to house the world's first dinosaur sculptures.
They were created in the 1850s from what, at the time, were very recent scientific discoveries: fossils, unearthed in England just a few decades earlier.
Scientists struggled to make sense of the creatures, and the sculptures were the first attempt to visualize them in life size.
They were depicted as giant, mammal-like, large, four-legged beasts, an idea already revolutionary compared to previous ones, which imagined dinosaurs essentially as huge lizards.
But it was just as wrong.
View of the Crystal Palace exhibition with Richard Owen's fantastic reconstructions of dinosaurs in the foreground, by London-based printer George Baxter.
Credit: Wellcome Collection
Today we know that dinosaurs looked nothing like the scaly versions of the Crystal Palace. Yet for decades, the sculptures, as well as many other later depictions, inaccurately influenced the public's view of these extinct giants. However, renowned paleontologist Michael Benton's new book, "Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World," offers the latest interpretation.
"This is the first book on dinosaurs in which dinosaurs really look the way they did," says the author, who has worked with paleoartist Bob Nicholls to bring the creatures to life.
"Every detail, as far as possible, is justified by evidence. We tried to choose species that were fairly well documented, so that in the text it can indicate what we know and why we know it."
Paleoartist Bob Nicholls brought the creatures from Benton's book to life, including on the cover shown here.
Credit: Thames & Hudson
Much of the evidence comes from the latest fossil discoveries in China, which beginning in the 1990s changed the way dinosaurs were interpreted.
The 1996 discovery in the country's Liaoning Province of a feathered fossil, for example, created a direct connection between dinosaurs and birds.
Fossil reveals a bird with long, showy feathers that lived 120 million years ago
"I think we can say that feathers originated much earlier than we thought, at least 100 million years earlier, so right at the origin of the dinosaurs," Benton said.
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Restoration of the Hadrosaurus foulkii skeleton based on the original from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the first museum montage of a dinosaur that was also correctly upright.
Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives
The idea that dinosaurs had feathers has not appealed to everyone.
The "Jurassic Park" franchise that debuted in 1993, before the feathered dinosaur fossils were discovered, has steadfastly refused to include them in its most recent films.
"They characterize it by saying they don't want the T-Rex to look like a giant chicken. But it's a shame," Benton said.
More recently still, Benton and his team at the University of Bristol, UK, have pioneered finding pigment structures embedded deep within fossilized feathers, to identify a dinosaur's color patterns from fossils.
"We were the first to apply this method in 2010, so the book primarily documents studies over the last 10 years in which fossil skin, scales and feathers were looked at ... to get the color."
The result is shown through the illustrations of 15 creatures that appear in the book, not only of dinosaurs, but also of prehistoric birds, mammals and reptiles, adorned with vibrant skin patterns, abundant multi-colored feathers and some with striking iridescent heads.
Reconstruction of a Psittacosaurus, illustration that appears in the book "Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World".
A fossil find of this creature contained preserved soft tissues, including skin and a series of reed-like feathers on top of the tail.
Observing these creatures shows how much our knowledge of dinosaurs has improved, and how much it can improve even further.
"A few years ago, I thought we would never have known the color of a dinosaur, but now we do," Benton said.
"You don't have to set limits, because sooner or later, a smart young man is going to say, 'Hey guys, we can figure this out.'
"Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World" is published by Thames & Hudson.
Add to list: Dinomania
Lee: "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs", (2018)
For the full history of dinosaurs, look no further than this "dinosaur biography" from one of the world's leading paleontologists, Steve Brusatte.
The book tells the 200 million year history of dinosaurs, from the Triassic through the Jurassic and up to the Cretaceous, when their dominance ended by a mass extinction caused by a comet or asteroid.
Narrated as an epic saga illustrating the modern workings of paleontology, it is based on very recent research.
See: "Walking with Dinosaurs", (2000)
This classic documentary series, produced by the venerable BBC Natural History Unit and broadcast by Discovery in the United States, had the honor of being the most expensive documentary ever made when it was released in 1999. It won three Emmys, spawned two sequels. and he portrayed dinosaurs in their natural habitat, in true documentary style, using a mix of computer graphics and animatronics.
It was an avant-garde film for its time and continues to have great educational and entertainment value, although some of the science is now out of date.
See: "Dinosaur 13", (2014)
This mix of paleontology and political drama is woven throughout the history of Sue, the largest and most complete skeleton of T. rex ever found.
After being unearthed in South Dakota in 1990, the fossil became the center of a years-long legal battle over its ownership, illustrating the disagreements that can arise between paleontologists, fossil collectors and land-owning governments in the United States. that are found.
Spoiler alert: Sue is now on display at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.
Listen: "I know Dino", (2016-)
The go-to podcast for dinosaur lovers, "I Know Dino" is directed by Garret Kruger and Sabrina Ricci, a marriage of dinosaur enthusiasts.
Each hour-long episode focuses on one species, which is analyzed and explored in detail with the help of guests.
The podcast, which started in 2016, is already close to 400 episodes.
See: "Jurassic Park", (1993)
This Steven Spielberg classic continues to be the landmark of popular culture about dinosaurs.
It was the first film to portray them as intelligent, dynamic, and fast-moving creatures.
(Who could forget the famous scene of the T. rex fighting velociraptors?) Although shot nearly 30 years ago, the film's CGI still stands up to scrutiny.
The scientific precision has waned over the years, but it is still an entertaining movie to watch, with the performances of Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum, which are a landmark.