Dippy on tour: Huge 70ft-long dinosaur exhibit arrives in Birmingham
The finishing touches have been completed on stunning dinosaur exhibit in the West Midlands which opens to the public this weekend.
The 70ft plaster cast replica of Dippy the diplodocus can be viewed at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from tomorrow.
It has been a painstaking installation process, with 292 individual bones making up the dinosaur's skeleton.
WATCH: Find out more on the historic exhibit
Dippy has been on display at the Natural History Museum in London since 1979 but has now gone on tour around the country.
He will be on show in Birmingham until September 9.
Lorraine Cornish, head of conservation at the Natural History Museum, said: "We have done our best to make him look beautiful for his public.
"Bringing Dippy here there was a lot to think about – for every venue we have to make sure it is going in the right space and there is enough space.
"Dippy is made of plaster of Paris so quite delicate and some of the pieces are very fragile.
"There are 292 individual bones which come in 86 sections so we had to work out the best way and best order to install Dippy.
"We have had to be very careful and considered in how we put him together."
It is free to see Dippy but museum bosses expect it to be very busy so visitors can only get in with a timed ticket.
The full skeleton cast is an impressive 21.3 metres long, 4.3 metres wide and 4.25 metres high.
The Diplodocus lived in what is now North America at the end of the Jurassic period. There were several species.
The gigantic plant-eater was one of the longest animals ever to have walked the earth and died out around 145 million years ago, long before a giant asteroid caused the dinosaurs to become extinct.
Visit nhm.ac.uk or the Birmingham museum's website to find out more about Dippy on tour.
