Editing Dinosaur (section)

==Cultural depictions==
{{Main|Cultural depictions of dinosaurs}}
[[File:Iguanodon Crystal Palace.jpg|thumb|Outdated ''Iguanodon'' statues created by [[Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins]] for the [[Crystal Palace Park]] in 1853]]
[[File:Winsor McCay (1914)Gertie the Dinosaur.webm|thumb|right|alt=Animated film of a trained dinosaur.|thumbtime=16:46|''[[Gertie the Dinosaur]]'' (1914) by [[Winsor McCay]], featuring the first animated dinosaur]]
By human standards, dinosaurs were creatures of fantastic appearance and often enormous size. As such, they have captured the popular imagination and become an enduring part of human culture. The entry of the word "dinosaur" into the common [[vernacular]] reflects the animals' cultural importance: in English, "dinosaur" is commonly used to describe anything that is impractically large, obsolete, or bound for extinction.<ref name="m-w"/>

Public enthusiasm for dinosaurs first developed in [[Victorian era|Victorian]] England, where in 1854, three decades after the first scientific descriptions of dinosaur remains, a menagerie of lifelike [[Crystal Palace dinosaurs|dinosaur sculptures]] was unveiled in [[London]]'s [[Crystal Palace Park]]. The Crystal Palace dinosaurs proved so popular that a strong market in smaller replicas soon developed. In subsequent decades, dinosaur exhibits opened at parks and [[Natural history museum|museums]] around the world, ensuring that successive generations would be introduced to the animals in an immersive and exciting way.<ref name=torrens1993/> The enduring popularity of dinosaurs, in its turn, has resulted in significant public funding for dinosaur science, and has frequently spurred new discoveries. In the United States, for example, the competition between museums for public attention led directly to the Bone Wars of the 1880s and 1890s, during which a pair of feuding paleontologists made enormous scientific contributions.<ref name=breithaupt1997/>

The popular preoccupation with dinosaurs has ensured their appearance in [[literature]], [[film]], and other [[Media (communication)|media]]. Beginning in 1852 with a passing mention in [[Charles Dickens]]{{'}} ''[[Bleak House]]'',<ref name=bleakhouse/> dinosaurs have been featured in large numbers of [[fiction]]al works. [[Jules Verne]]'s 1864 novel ''[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]'', [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s 1912 book ''[[The Lost World (Doyle novel)|The Lost World]]'', the 1914 animated film ''[[Gertie the Dinosaur]]'' (featuring the first animated dinosaur), the iconic 1933 [[motion picture|film]] ''[[King Kong (1933 film)|King Kong]]'', the 1954 ''[[Godzilla (1954 film)|Godzilla]]'' and its many sequels, the best-selling 1990 novel ''[[Jurassic Park (novel)|Jurassic Park]]'' by [[Michael Crichton]] and its 1993 [[Jurassic Park (film)|film adaptation]] are just a few notable examples of dinosaur appearances in fiction. Authors of general-interest [[non-fiction]] works about dinosaurs, including some prominent paleontologists, have often sought to use the animals as a way to educate readers about science in general. Dinosaurs are ubiquitous in [[advertising]]; numerous [[Company (law)|companies]] have referenced dinosaurs in printed or televised advertisements, either in order to sell their own products or in order to characterize their rivals as slow-moving, dim-witted, or obsolete.<ref name=DFGlut1997/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Newton |last2=Madej |first2=Krystina |title=Disney Stories |chapter=Early Animation: Gags and Situations |date=2012 |pages=17–24 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-2101-6_3|isbn=978-1-4614-2100-9 |s2cid=192335675 }}</ref>