As the train rushes trough the flat landscape, as the towns and villages become fewer and farther between and as the forests of the Veluwe give way to the lakes and fields of the North, I feel strengthened. I’ve lived centrally in the Netherlands for years, but my inner compass still points due North. It’s always worth coming out all this way. There’s always some dinosaur exhibition going on somewhere. Three years ago, it was Denekamp; last year, it was…
‘Twas the night before TetZooCon, and London was full of palaeo enthusiasts. Many of them took the opportunity to visit the Natural History Museum before the introduction event on Friday night, and indeed, so did I. I was in London accompanied by our Marc and our Agata, knowing that I wanted to see the temporary exhibition called Titanosaur: Life As The Biggest Dinosaur. The main attraction was of course a full sized mount of Patagotitan, one of the best known…
Westfalen in October can mean only one thing: rain, rain and more rain. But nothing is to spoil my mood today: I’ve come to Münster, more or less on a whim, for this lovely natural history museum (as well as the zoo next door). The museum is currently undergoing partial renovations, but no matter; I’ll come back again next year to see what they made of it. A planetarium is also housed in the building at an upcharge. It’s worth…
Ah, the glamorous lifestyle of the dinosaur blogger. It’s a life full of fast cars, fancy clothes, exclusive parties, sexy people of all genders and, don’t forget, exotic locations all around the world. Today we are in Vlaardingen! It’s a historic fishing town in the greater Rotterdam area. Rotterdam is famed for both its bizarre architecture and interesting museums. Not to be outdone, Vlaardingen has some of its own to offer in both categories. The collection of Museum Vlaardingen is…
Last time, we explored the upper floor of the baroque 19th century palace that holds the Natural History Museum of Vienna. It’s time to descend the marble staircase into the past and take our journey through deep time, from the distant precambrian days to the Holocene. Maybe we’ll even meet some dinosaurs along the way, who knows? I hadn’t done any research beforehand, so I visited the museum with very limited knowledge and not much in the way of expectations.…
There’s many natural history museums in this world. Not many of them look like this: Granted, this isn’t the museum we’re talking about, although it does indeed look similar. The above image is of the nearly identical Kunsthistorisches Museum across the square. Cross the square, to the other side of the bombastic monument to Empress Maria Theresia. Here is the real subject of today’s excursion: That’s right, we’re in Vienna today and we’re going to see the famous Naturhistorisches Museum.…
It’s been over two years since I shared with you my first experience of the renovated Naturalis, the Netherlands’ premier museum of nature and natural history. My review, found here and here, was somewhat mixed, and for whatever reason (I forget the reason but I’m fairly sure there was a reason) we missed the Live Science Hall. An egregious oversight on my part, it’s true. It was for this reason that Martijn “Dinosaurus” Guliker reached out to me. He is…
Dakota the Edmontosaurus dinomummy returns to public view in a new exhibition by the North Dakota Geological Survey’s Paleontology division, which opened just over a week ago on October 16th at the North Dakota Heritage Centre. Specifically, Dakota’s exquisitely preserved right hand and tail are currently on display. I’m sincerely honoured (and more than a little struck by Imposter Syndrome) to have been commissioned for an illustration for the exhibit; my first in a museum.…
Following the stunning coup that was the Dinosaurs of China exhibition, the Nottingham Natural History Museum – located in the former stately home, Wollaton Hall, in Nottingham – has opened another temporary dinosaur display of a dramatically different nature. Whereas Dinosaurs of China was stuffed with a wide range of different fossil animals that are seldom seen in the UK (or even Europe), the museum’s latest big-ticket attraction is entirely centred on a single specimen. Of course, it does happen…
It was a coincidence, really. It so happened that my work took me to Twente, the far Eastern corner of the Netherlands, and I saw these posters along the side of the road, advertising a dinosaur exhibition at Natura Docet. Of course, Natura Docet. The local nature museum. That’s here somewhere, isn’t it? Had I not befriended its curator, Eric Mulder, a couple of years ago? I immediately wrote it down and paid a visit to the museum at the…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.