Finally - My Trip to the NHM

Back in April I went to the Natural History Museum in London with the Earth Soc at uni but as I did not have a camera I had no photographs to show off, but now I do, so here is a photographic run through. I mentioned it at the time, see here, but didn't say or show much.

In one of the entrance hall alcoves we found some crinoids. What was special about them for us was that the description at the side put emphasis on their plant-like appearance, so naturally we had to take pictures for our crinoid-loving friend James, just to take the piss.

The first place we went were the fascinating spirit collections, seeing famous specimens such as some of Darwin's finds, the "living fossil" coelacanth, and of course, the giant squid.

Following the spirit tour, a couple of us headed through to the mammals section, so on the right is a picture of a very cute stuffed bear and below is me admiring more stuffed mammals.

When we went through to the main mammals gallery there was one model whale in particular which really got my attention and no, it was not the famous life-sized blue whale. It was this whale on the left whom we nicknamed "Downsy".

We then went on to look at insects and other assorted creepy crawlies, but then of course we went to the dinosaurs section. Here are the dromaeosaurs, a favourite of mine. It was only natural that we do an impression of the Hypsilophodon skeletons.

I also got to see some more of my favourites, including Allosaurus  and the lovely Tuojiangosaurus  on the right.

After we left the dinosaurs section we were running out of time and rushed off to look at other stuff, getting distracted by the minerals gallery. After that we rushed about at an even faster pace, occasionally getting distracted yet again. As you can see on the left, I had to pose with this gorgeous example of botryoidal haematite. We then sadly left, after a quick trip to the gift shop. On the train on the way home the girls used their purchases to re-enact events that obviously occurred during the Mesozoic: