Dippy, the 70ft-long skeleton replica of Diplodocus carnegii species, is quietly waiting for an escape for more than a century at United Kingdom’s one of the most prestigious — Natural History Museum (NHM). Dippy was housed in the museum since 1905, lived about 145-156 million years ago close to the end of the Jurassic period, and debuted its journey at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester, he is now on planning a tour to seven other destinations in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of England.
The early studies believed that the Diplodocuses had very dominant posture, with their heads, held high up in the air, but the modern studies prove otherwise. So, based on the current studies, the neutral position of the dinosaur was more likely to have been horizontal, and the new display model is arranged as such. Dippy is the possessor of 292 bones in total, while it comes together to assemble in just 86 pieces. Dippy will meet close to five million new faces while on his new journey across the country. Jon Murden, the director of the Dorset County Museum expressed his joy on the prediction of the number of people likely to show up and make small talks with Dippy. Murden said delightedly that, “I think it’s because he’s a museum superstar. He’s a true icon of the museum world. You often think of that entrance to the Natural History Museum, where he stood when you think about museums in general.”
Lorraine Cornish of the Natural History Museum said he is content and expressed his pride, as a significant amount of work went in planning the tour and collaborating with all the venues. It took the team whole two weeks to put Dippy’s skeleton together, “We are really, really pleased Dippy is going to open to the public on Saturday. We chose Dorset because we decided we wanted to go back in time to when Dippy was around, 150 million years ago, and the Jurassic Coast is the home of paleontology,” Cornish said in a statement.
The venues where Dippy is visiting will be full of fantastic events to engage both the young and old visitors while showing the natural world and natural history, and moreover, it is all for free. After staying in Dorchester for three months, Dippy will continue with his journey to museums and cathedrals including cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Rochdale and Norwich. We wish Dippy a wonderful journey ahead and a lot of fun interactions with various people.