Commentary
There’s a stage that all young boys go through—at least all the young boys known to me—that is so consistent that it seems almost biological in nature: namely that of a fascination with dinosaurs. Of course, it can’t really be biological, because dinosaurs weren’t named as such—”terrible lizards”—until 1841, by the comparative anatomist Richard Owen. The remains of giant reptiles had been found and recognized as such shortly before, but until Owen it wasn’t realized that they were closely related.
Dinosaurs became really popular after giant models of them were put in the grounds of the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition in London of 1851. A century and a half isn’t long enough, of course, to have hard-wired fascination with dinosaurs into boys’ brains. No doubt there’s some other explanation….