Hairy Museum of Natural History

Can anyone provide information on the following photograph? Where it is, when it might have been taken, if it was part of a larger series, etc.?

David Baccadutre, the head of Graphics at the NMMNHS (and a talented designer and photographer himself), came across this old photograph and is looking for more information about it. Please leave a comment if you can provide any answers as to the provenance of this image. And thanks!

Update 4/9: Thanks to everyone with answers! It appears that this is a cast of Andrew Carnegie’s Diplodocus overlooking some stuffed crocodilians in the old Hall of Reptiles at the British Museum of Natural History. Pascal has links to other photos of the skeleton in the comments, and Mike Skrepnick has written in with another photograph of the same hall during while it appears to be under construction:

According to Mike, “The photo appears in a book by David Spalding called ‘Dinosaur Hunters’ by Key Porter books ( a Canadian pub. in Toronto ) 1993, in a section of photo plates between pg. 54 - 55.  The caption confirms it’s Diplodocus carnegii at the BMNH, with a photo credit to the Carnegie, so I suspect they may have more of the ’series’ in their archives.”

Thanks to everyone who has written in so far. If you know of any more images from this time/place, keep ‘em coming!

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Museumabilia.

Comments on record: (6)

New proprietors have completely overhauled the café at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which reopened earlier this week. I haven’t had a chance to sample the menu yet, but there is some appetizing art up on the walls—four gorgeous Cretaceous landscapes by talented illustrator (and Museum volunteer) Mary Sundstrom, and four pieces of mine: two Monkey-Lizards and two Permian trackmakers. Check them out in the newly christened “M Café” the next time you visit the NMMNHS.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Museumabilia, Paleo-Pop.

Comments on record: (2)

The first issue of the tenth volume of the online journal Palaeontologia Electronica came out today, and boy, is it a good one. In addition to the crawling crinoids on the cover, there are a slew of worthy articles, including:

• how to smell your way across a Precambrian seafloor,
• a new reconstruction of the ceratopsian step cycle,
• and what the next ten years of paleontology might bring.

But the bit I’m enjoying most is this blurb from Kevin Padian’s review of the recently-published Dawn of the Dinosaurs: Life in the Triassic:

Being in the Triassic is like visiting the intergalactic bar that Luke Skywalker encounters in the original Star Wars movie: the characters look weird but vaguely familiar, the resemblances are usually superficial, you have some trouble figuring out what everyone is saying, and most of them would kill you as soon as look at you.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Paleo-Pop.

Comments on record: (0)