So long, Dippy: museum's blue whale seeks to inspire love of living world

Natural History Museum in London signals urgency of wildlife crisis by replacing dinosaur centrepiece with species alive todayIn the hot summer of 1976, when Richard Sabin was 10, he went on a trip with his Birmingham primary school to theNatural History Museum in London. Blown away by the scale of what he was seeing, the wide-eyed schoolboy was told by an attendant that if he wanted to see something really big he should make his way to the mammal hall, where the skeletons of a number of whales, including an enormous blue whale, were displayed.“Another gallery attendant went past, and I stopped her and said, ‘Are these real?’” recalls Sabin. “And she said, ‘Yes they are. They’re the real skeletons of animals that still live in our oceans today.’ That was the sentence that really grabbed me and carried me away. I didn’t k now what to make of what I was seeing. I was transfixed.”Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Science Natural History Museum Whales Environment Marine life Museums Culture Wildlife Cetaceans Conservation BBC David Attenborough Television & radio Dinosaurs Fossils Zoology Biology London UK news Source Type: news