Gideon Mantell - the hard-working doctor of humble birth who devotes his life to unearthing fossils around his home town of Lewes. His most famous find is a skeleton which he names Iguanodon. Facing bankruptcy and the debtors prison, he is forced to sell his 25-year-old fossil collection. After an accident leaves him in severe pain, he dies of opium overdose, not credited in his lifetime for his achievements. Richard Owen - an anatomist with ambition. Climbs to the top of the scientific establishment by claiming the work of Mantell and others as his own. Names 'dinosaurs' in a fossil report based on Mantell's findings and is asked to provide models for the Crystal Palace, which are still there. Links his findings to the Biblical story of evolution and is eventually discredited following the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species.