Dippy on Tour at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery - 22nd July

*D

Dippy, the celebrated Diplodocus skeleton, from the Natural History Museum, London, is currently on tour and is at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 26th May until 9th September. The event in the Gas Hall is free and you can apply for timed tickets in advance. We have seen Dippy several times in London but who could resist the opportunity of seeing him in a different location.

Although I never go into Birmingham City Centre shopping, I do like the old business district of the City where the museum is located. I worked in this area many years ago for a short while and spent nearly every lunch hour in the museum which in those days had a large natural history section.

For many years the Post Office Tower in Birmingham had a pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting. I haven't been able to find out if they are nesting this year.

Buddleia gets a foothold everywhere!

Entrance to the Gas Hall

First sighting of Dippy - apologies the whole set of images are not that good as light was poor and I had to use a high iso.

This skeleton of a Diplodocus (known as Dippy) has been greeting visitors to the Natural History Museum in London since 1905. He is not actually a real skeleton but a plaster replica of a fossilised skeleton discovered in the badlands of Wyoming, USA, and now located in the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh. The skeleton consists of 365 individual bones including over 70 tail vertebrae plus 46 teeth. The Diplodocus species was first described in 1878 by Professor Othniel C Marsh of Yale University, America. Diplodocus skeletons have only been found in the American west. They occur in a thick layer of sandstone and mudstone called The Morrison Formation. The rocks have been dated to 157-145 million years old (Late Jurassic Period) thus the Diplodocus skeletons and bones must date back also to this period.

Andrew Carnegie who was born in Scotland and whose family emigrated to America when he was 12 became one of the world's richest men and he established the Carnegie Institute (now Museum) in 1895 in Pittsburgh. He searched for news of specimens to fill his new museum and he decided the huge Diplodocus skeleton recently discovered would be the ideal centre piece. In the autumn of 1902 King Edward VII visited Carnegie at his Scottish castle and learnt about the skeleton and commented that it would be marvellous to have such a skeleton in the galleries of the British (now Natural History) museum. Carnegie immediately planned to send another skeleton to London but it was difficult to find one as complete as Dippy so it was suggested that an accurate plaster cast would be made and sent over instead.

Dippy was officially unveiled at a presentation ceremony on 12th May, 1905, in London.

Diplodocus species belong to a group of dinosaurs called Sauropods (lizard feet). They have very long necks (up to 17 vertebrae), barrel-shaped bodies, thick columns of legs and long slender tails. The heads are small compared to the size of the rest of the body. All sauropods were herbivores and would have needed to consume 100's of kilograms of vegetation a day to fuel their massive size. Sauropod fossils in general have been found on every continent (except Antarctica) and the group first appeared about 220 million years ago (Late Triassic). They were widespread during the Jurassic (201-145 million years ago) and became extinct 65 millions years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Dippy is 21.3 metres long, 4.3 metres wide and 4.25 metres high.The huge legs support the 25 tonne body. The pencil like teeth arranged like a rake were used to strip the leaves off giant ferns.

*D

There was a really excellent exhibition on "Discovering Living Dinosaurs" which was full of exhibits and information on bird evolution. I've included a few photos and some text to give you an idea of how good it was. One group of dinosaurs the theropods evolved eventually into birds. 65 million years ago non-flying dinosaurs along with many other species became extinct following an asteroid strike combined with huge volcanic eruptions in India. This is called the Cretaceous -Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinction. The only dinosaurs to survive were the Neorinthes - the group which included modern birds. After the extinction there was a rapid diversification of birds and they have now evolved into more than 10,000 species.




Skeletons and bones are the parts of an animal that tend to become fossilised. Bird skeletons show various traits inherited from their dinosaur ancestors. Studying these fossils allows scientists to work out how extinct creatures were related and to construct the evolutionary history of birds.

Model of Bambiraptor skull (a small predatory therapod)

Archaeopteryx skull

Griffin Vulture Skull

Model of Velociraptor feet

Emu foot

Feathers are a characteristic feature of modern birds. There is a huge variety of colours, shapes and uses. Feathers are needed for flight and other functions including insulation, display, camouflage and waterproofing. We now know that flightless therapods possessed feathers and can see how feathers have evolved from fossil discoveries.

Archaeopteryx - an important fossil group for understanding the origin of birds - characteristics of dinosaurs are the long bony tail, toothed jaw and separate fingers. Features of modern birds include the arrangement of feathers on the wings and a large brain. They were capable of short bursts of powered flight (similar to today's pheasants).

A cast of Confuciusornis sanctus - an ancient bird found in China which lived in the Early Cretaceous (125 - 200 million years ago). Fossils show features found in modern birds. The species spent much of its time in trees and has strong flexible feet. Many fossils have feathers and analysis suggests they were coloured grey, red-brown and black.

Young birds have downy feathers

Golden Eagle

Great Crested Grebe

Eggs and nest - there were a lot of people in this part of the exhibition so only a few photos.

Several different types of animals lay eggs e.g. reptiles, birds, and some mammals, for example duck-billed platypus. Dinosaurs also laid eggs - some species buried the eggs and left them to develop on their own whereas some species have left fossilised eggs that are similar in structure to today's birds' eggs and these species made nests and looked after their eggs.

Cast of an oviraphoid nest

A collection of eggs showing shapes (thank goodness egg collecting is illegal these days).

Flight is a key adaptation of birds enabling them to live in remote areas, escape predators and fly long distances in search of food. Flight uses a lot of energy so in areas where there are few predators it can be advantageous not to fly. However, this carries risks as if predators arrive (in many cases they have been introduced by humans) the birds can become very vulnerable.

Common Raven

Arctic Tern Migration Route

The Great Auk - a flightless bird from the North Atlantic - they were hunted for food and feathers for centuries and by the 19th century were only found on remote islands. The species became extinct in 1844 when the last survivor was killed.

(Whenever I hear of this species I think of the "Aventure of......." books by Enid Blyton which I adored as a child and my children loved them too. I am sure it was The Island of Adventure when Jack was convinced he had seen a living specimen of a Great Auk.)

Local birds and conservation

There was a small shop selling Dippy items (I bought a book and some postcards but Dippy toys at £20 were a trifle expensive so I bought

a duck instead who reminded me of Mr Quacks and Mr Ponders on other blogs I read. What shall I call him? Suggestions so far include Beaky and Dippy.)

Chomp - is a baby Diplodocus created by chocolatiers at Cadbury's World from chocolate to celebrate the arrival of Dippy.

The tearooms at the museum were very busy so

we found somewhere quieter for a drink.

This tasted like a Strawberry Milkshake but it had a much more up-market name Strawberry Frappuccino!

D had told me about this bee sculpture so I had to search it out.

Bug hotels

Fossilised shells on a bench

This made me smile.

*D Photos by D with the Canon SX50 hs bridge camera

The rest taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera


Reference: "Dippy The tale of a museum icon" by Paul Barrett, Polly Parry and Sandra Chapman
Various information boards in the exhibition


Back to the Isle of Wight next time and a visit to the church and churchyard at Niton.