Little and large show

Natural History Museum shows off its new dinosaurs with a big difference

- Robert Dex

JUST like London buses, you wait ages for a new dinosaur then two come along at once — although one is quite a bit bigger than the other.

The big one is Fern, a new bronze cast of the Natural History Museum’s muchloved diplodocus Dippy. It has gone on show for the first time today alongside a second bronze dinosaur Hypsilophodon which was native to Britain.

The original 85ft-long skeleton, seen by generations of schoolchildren, started a three-year residency in Coventry last year and has been replaced inside the museum in Kensington by a blue whale skeleton. Its new bronze version was named by local schoolchildren and sits at the heart of the museum’s new gardens which open on Thursday.