Latest news with #Dippy
The Independent
9 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Why the UK loves Dippy the Dinosaur so much
Dippy – a complete cast of a diplodocus skeleton – is Britain's most famous dinosaur. It has resided at the Natural History Museum in London since 1905 and is now on show in Coventry where it is 'dinosaur-in-residence' at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Dippy, the star attraction in the huge entrance hall of the Natural History Museum from 1979 to 2018, i s now on tour around the UK, with Coventry as its latest stop. It had previously been shown in Dorchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Rochdale, Norwich and London. So what is it that makes Dippy so popular? I got a sense of the dino's appeal in August 2021 when I gave a lecture under the Dippy skeleton in Norwich Cathedral. The lecture was about dinosaur feathers and colours. It highlighted new research that identified traces of pigment in the fossilised feathers of birds and dinosaurs. I wanted to highlight the enormous advances in the ways we can study dinosaurs that had taken place in just a century. Before arriving, I thought that Dippy would fill the cathedral – after all the skeleton is 26 metres long and it had filled the length of the gallery at the Natural History Museum. However, Dippy was dwarfed by the gothic cathedral's scale. In fact, the building is so large that five Dippys could line up, nose to tail, from the great west door to the high altar at the east end. This sense of awe is one of the key reasons to study palaeontology – to understand how such extraordinary animals ever existed. I asked the Norwich cathedral canon why they had agreed to host the dinosaur, and he gave three answers. First, the dinosaur would attract lots of visitors. Second, Dippy is from the Jurassic period, as are the rocks used to construct the cathedral. Finally, for visitors it shared with the cathedral a sense of awe because of its huge size. Far from being diminished by its temporary home, visitors still walked around and under Dippy sensing its grandeur. Dippy arrived in London in 1905 as part of a campaign for public education by the Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919). At the time, there was a debate in academic circles about the function of museums and how far professionals should go in seeking to educate the public. There was considerable reticence about going too far. Many professors felt that showing dinosaurs to the public would be unprofessional in instances where they moved from description of facts into the realm of speculation. They also did not want to risk ridicule by conveying unsupported information about the appearance and lifestyle of the great beasts. Finally, many professors simply did not see such populism as any part of their jobs. But, at that time, the American Museum of Natural History was well established in New York and its new president, Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was distinctly a populist. He sponsored the palaeo artist Charles Knight (1874-1953), whose vivid colour paintings of dinosaurs were the glory of the museum and influential worldwide. Osborn was as hated by palaeontology professors as he was feted by the public. Carnegie pumped his steel dollars into many philanthropic works in his native Scotland and all over America, including the Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. When he heard that a new and complete skeleton of a diplodocus had been dug up in Wyoming, he bought it and brought it to his new museum. It was named as a new species, Diplodocus carnegiei. On a visit to Carnegie's Scottish residence, Skibo Castle, King Edward VII saw a sketch of the bones and Carnegie agreed to donate a complete cast of the skeleton to Britain's Natural History Museum. The skeleton was copied by first making rubber moulds of each bone in several parts, then filling the moulds with plaster to make casts and colouring the bones to make them look real. The 292 pieces were shipped to London in 36 crates and opened to the public in May 1905. Carnegie's original Dippy skeleton only went on show in Pittsburgh in 1907, after the new museum building had been constructed. Carnegie had got the royal bug and donated further complete Dippy casts to the great natural history museums in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Bologna, St Petersburg, Madrid, Munich, Mexico City and La Plata in Argentina. Each of these nations, except France, had a king or tsar at the time. The skeletons went on show in all these locations, except Munich, and Dippy has been seen by many millions of people in the past 120 years. Dippy's appeal Dippy's appeal is manifold. It's huge – we like our dinosaurs big. It has been seen up close by more people around the world than any other dinosaur. It also opens the world of science to many people. Evolution, deep time, climate change, origins, extinction and biodiversity are all big themes that link biology, geology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Also, since 1905, palaeontology has moved from being a largely speculative subject to the realms of testable science. Calculations of jaw functions and limb movements of dinosaurs can be tested and challenged. Hypotheses about physiology, reproduction, growth and colour can be based on evidence from microscopic study of bones and exceptionally preserved tissues, and these analyses can be repeated and refuted. Dippy has witnessed over a century of rapid change and its appeal is sure to continue for the next.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Science
- The Independent
The big reason why we love Dippy the Dinosaur so much
Dippy – a complete cast of a diplodocus skeleton – is Britain's most famous dinosaur. It has resided at the Natural History Museum in London since 1905 and is now on show in Coventry where it is 'dinosaur-in-residence' at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Dippy, the star attraction in the huge entrance hall of the Natural History Museum from 1979 to 2018, i s now on tour around the UK, with Coventry as its latest stop. It had previously been shown in Dorchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Rochdale, Norwich and London. So what is it that makes Dippy so popular? I got a sense of the dino's appeal in August 2021 when I gave a lecture under the Dippy skeleton in Norwich Cathedral. The lecture was about dinosaur feathers and colours. It highlighted new research that identified traces of pigment in the fossilised feathers of birds and dinosaurs. I wanted to highlight the enormous advances in the ways we can study dinosaurs that had taken place in just a century. Before arriving, I thought that Dippy would fill the cathedral – after all the skeleton is 26 metres long and it had filled the length of the gallery at the Natural History Museum. However, Dippy was dwarfed by the gothic cathedral's scale. In fact, the building is so large that five Dippys could line up, nose to tail, from the great west door to the high altar at the east end. This sense of awe is one of the key reasons to study palaeontology – to understand how such extraordinary animals ever existed. I asked the Norwich cathedral canon why they had agreed to host the dinosaur, and he gave three answers. First, the dinosaur would attract lots of visitors. Second, Dippy is from the Jurassic period, as are the rocks used to construct the cathedral. Finally, for visitors it shared with the cathedral a sense of awe because of its huge size. Far from being diminished by its temporary home, visitors still walked around and under Dippy sensing its grandeur. Dippy arrived in London in 1905 as part of a campaign for public education by the Scottish-American millionaire Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919). At the time, there was a debate in academic circles about the function of museums and how far professionals should go in seeking to educate the public. There was considerable reticence about going too far. Many professors felt that showing dinosaurs to the public would be unprofessional in instances where they moved from description of facts into the realm of speculation. They also did not want to risk ridicule by conveying unsupported information about the appearance and lifestyle of the great beasts. Finally, many professors simply did not see such populism as any part of their jobs. But, at that time, the American Museum of Natural History was well established in New York and its new president, Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was distinctly a populist. He sponsored the palaeo artist Charles Knight (1874-1953), whose vivid colour paintings of dinosaurs were the glory of the museum and influential worldwide. Osborn was as hated by palaeontology professors as he was feted by the public. Carnegie pumped his steel dollars into many philanthropic works in his native Scotland and all over America, including the Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. When he heard that a new and complete skeleton of a diplodocus had been dug up in Wyoming, he bought it and brought it to his new museum. It was named as a new species, Diplodocus carnegiei. On a visit to Carnegie's Scottish residence, Skibo Castle, King Edward VII saw a sketch of the bones and Carnegie agreed to donate a complete cast of the skeleton to Britain's Natural History Museum. The skeleton was copied by first making rubber moulds of each bone in several parts, then filling the moulds with plaster to make casts and colouring the bones to make them look real. The 292 pieces were shipped to London in 36 crates and opened to the public in May 1905. Carnegie's original Dippy skeleton only went on show in Pittsburgh in 1907, after the new museum building had been constructed. Carnegie had got the royal bug and donated further complete Dippy casts to the great natural history museums in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Bologna, St Petersburg, Madrid, Munich, Mexico City and La Plata in Argentina. Each of these nations, except France, had a king or tsar at the time. The skeletons went on show in all these locations, except Munich, and Dippy has been seen by many millions of people in the past 120 years. Dippy's appeal Dippy's appeal is manifold. It's huge – we like our dinosaurs big. It has been seen up close by more people around the world than any other dinosaur. It also opens the world of science to many people. Evolution, deep time, climate change, origins, extinction and biodiversity are all big themes that link biology, geology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Also, since 1905, palaeontology has moved from being a largely speculative subject to the realms of testable science. Calculations of jaw functions and limb movements of dinosaurs can be tested and challenged. Hypotheses about physiology, reproduction, growth and colour can be based on evidence from microscopic study of bones and exceptionally preserved tissues, and these analyses can be repeated and refuted. Dippy has witnessed over a century of rapid change and its appeal is sure to continue for the next.
New York Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Museum With Renowned Dinosaur Fossils Gets a $25 Million Gift
Carole Kamin first walked through the doors of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1975 after taking a job as a buyer for the Pittsburgh museum's gift shop. Awe-struck by the fossils on display, she would style herself as a 'dinosaur queen' for the next 20 years. She sourced dino-patterned fabric from India for barbecue aprons. She worked with a toy manufacturer to produce models of the museum's ancient creatures. She persuaded a candy supplier to make caramel-filled 'Sweet Beasts.' Now Kamin and her husband, Daniel, are donating $25 million toward renovating the museum, which was founded in 1895 and has one of North America's largest museum collections of fossils. The gift comes at a time when dinosaurs are as firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist as ever, thanks in part to record-setting fossil auctions and blockbuster films. The Carnegie museum's holdings include the species-defining fossils — known as holotypes — of the terrifying predator Tyrannosaurus rex and the giant herbivore Apatosaurus louisae. It also displays arguably the most famous dinosaur skeleton on Earth: the remains of Diplodocus carnegii, a long-necked dinosaur found in 1899 during an expedition funded by the steel baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Replica casts of the dinosaur, known as 'Dippy,' reside in museums around the world. 'This is a dinosaur town,' said Matt Lamanna, the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology. 'It's a source of civic pride.' The Kamins' donation will give the exhibit housing these ancient creatures, as well as surrounding displays, its first major upgrade in nearly two decades. A majority of their gift will create an endowment to fund research at the museum in perpetuity. 'I know how hard it is to get money for research and even positions,' said Carole Kamin, an emeritus member of the museum's advisory board. 'I just feel really, really good about this, knowing that it's going to help have the right people there.' It is a perilous moment for the natural world that museums catalog. Beyond the exhibits they host, natural history museums preserve the world's cultural and biological heritage. 'There's so much changing so rapidly, especially as it relates to biodiversity and the environments that we all call home, but these changes don't make sense unless we can look at that across millions of years,' said Gretchen Baker, the director of the Carnegie museum. 'Natural history museums are really the only place that can provide that kind of context, because we have the actual specimens and evidence of that change over time.' Some keepers of this archive are struggling to survive. Last year, Duke University announced plans to close its herbarium, one of the country's largest collections of plant, fungi and algae specimens. The Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y., announced in January that $30 million in pledged donations had fallen through, jeopardizing its ability to pay the mortgage on its Museum of the Earth. Over the past decade, though, several institutions have received large gifts to renovate marquee dinosaur exhibits and support research into the extinct reptiles. Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History received a $160 million gift in 2018, and from 2016 to 2017, Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund manager, gave the Field Museum in Chicago over $21 million for its dinosaur exhibits. Last year, Griffin bought a Stegosaurus fossil known as 'Apex' at auction for $44.6 million and then agreed to loan it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It is now being displayed in the museum's recently opened Gilder Center, a $465 million expansion seeded by Richard Gilder, the banker and philanthropist. The Kamins' gift to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History follows a $65 million donation that the couple — Daniel Kamin is the president of the Pittsburgh-based commercial real estate firm Kamin Realty — made last year to its sister institution, the Carnegie Science Center. Their combined $90 million in donations over the past year marks the largest philanthropic contribution to Carnegie Museums since Carnegie himself. Private support for research stands to become more important in the years to come, as the Trump administration considers cutting federal support to scientific and medical research. 'We exist because of private philanthropy, because Andrew Carnegie wanted to give back to the city where he had built his extraordinary wealth,' said Steven Knapp, the president and chief executive of Carnegie Museums. 'It's kind of at the heart of what makes it possible for institutions like ours to exist and to thrive.' When Carole Kamin was grinding away in her mid-20s, her work at the museum even bled into her sleep. She dreamed of baby dinosaurs running amok in the museum's basement, and of ancient winged reptiles known as pterosaurs soaring over Slippery Rock Creek, a stream north of Pittsburgh. The gift by the Kamins helps ensure that national history museums like the one that ignited her imagination will remain. 'It's a source of education for young people — of being curious about our world in general — and it sparks the interest in and curiosity of how the world even began,' she said. 'It'd be a lonely planet without having them.'
