13 - Return of the dinosaurs!

Archived news release from 2007

 

‘Return of the dinosaurs’ is a two-year exhibition featuring dinosaurs both big and small, with brand new models, fossils and reproductions of dino-food. It opens on Saturday 22 September.

 

The centrepiece of the exhibition will be an 18 foot tall replica of a dinosaur called baryonyx, a huge fish eating dinosaur with sharp teeth and a large curved claw on each hand. This specially commissioned piece will be erected in the stairwell of the museum with its snapping jaws greeting visitors as they leave the dinosaur gallery on the second storey. Dudley Museum is the only museum in the country with a life size replica of this most British of dinosaurs which was discovered in Ockley, Surrey in 1983.

 

The main exhibition in gallery two will also feature models of flying reptiles, swimming dinosaurs and meat eating monsters including the large raptor deinonycus.

 

There will be teeth, claws, skulls and vertebrae from carnivorous and omnivorous creatures as well as examples of the type of plants and creatures they would have eaten.

 

A new permanent climate change exhibition in gallery four will feature a more recent resident of the borough. A life-size woolly mammoth, ten feet tall will be making this new gallery its home. The mammoth was recently on display at the Red House Glass Cone but is now back home.

 

The climate change gallery will look at natural changes in the environment such as the recent ice age that ended some 12,000 to 10,000 years ago when mammoths last walked the Black Country, but will also look at the impact of humans on our environment.

 

The exhibition will reflect on the history of ice ages in the country, the origins of man and how what we do today can affect the world we live in. It’s hoped that the gallery will help inform people of ways in which we can work together to head off significant changes to the world’s climate.

 

 

“The return of the dinosaurs exhibition and climate change gallery should prove a huge draw for the people of Dudley borough and the wider West Midlands region.

“Events such as the Rock and Fossil Festival and fossil identification days at the museum are always well attended. Having a space dedicated to such a popular subject as dinosaurs should prove a hit with local families and children.”

 

The opening of the exhibition coincides with the popular Rock and Fossil festival held at Dudley Museum and Art Gallery and Dudley Concert Hall on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 September from 10am.

 

Entry to the museum is free. Admission to the festival costs £2 for adults, £1 for children and £5 for families.