Replica of world’s biggest ever dinosaur weighing 57 tonnes going on display in London in European first
A REPLICA of the skeleton of the biggest dinosaur looms over a visitor.
The model of the 57-ton Titanosaur is set to wow crowds at London’s Natural History Museum from tomorrow.
It will be displayed with the beast’s fossilised egg, rediscovered by museum staff who found it was wrongly categorised as a mineral in 1883.
Exhibition lead Sinead Marron said: “It’s incredible — these giants grew from eggs only 14cm in diameter.”
“We had started exploring potential loans from other Museums, or the possibility of creating a replica using 3D scans, before we discovered that we had had a titanosaur egg all along.”
The egg was originally categorised as a mineral in 1883 – before scientists knew that dinosaurs laid eggs.
It is thought that the egg was collected as early as 1817 before the term dinosaur was coined in 1842.
Robin Hansen, one of the Museum’s minerals curators, explained it was registered as a large agate, which is a variety of Quartz.
She added: “This egg is a great addition to Titanosaur: Life as the biggest dinosaur as it shows us just how small the eggs were in wonderful juxtaposition to the enormous size that the adults grow to!
“Due to the egg being infilled by agate, its spherical shape has been preserved so it is a fantastic specimen to share with visitors.
“Stories like this are great examples of the importance of Museum collections, and their untold potential to inform and inspire for generations to come.
“It is astonishing that we continue to learn new things from specimens that were donated to the Museum hundreds of years ago, and which originated millions of years beforehand.”