Tuesday 26 February 2013

Sedgwick museum

Last Friday we visted the Sedgwick museum. It is an awesome museum with fossils and models of prehistoric life. There was a deinotherium replica fossil skull, an exact replica of the famous archaeopteryx fossil, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pliosaurs, crocodilians, megaloceroses, something belonging to a diplocynodon, woolly mammoth hair and tusks, a megalosaurus skull, ammonites, plants and much more. For me, the star attraction was the original Mary Anning fossil skeletons!

Mary Anning was a teenage girl who lived in a poor family. To earn money she would look for fosils on pieces of slate beside the beach and sell them.

One day, she found something amazing. It was like a dolphin with a long bill, sharp backwards carved teeth and a tail like a shark. The fossil belonged to an ichthyosaurus - the first ever found. She sold it to Sedgwick who added it to his collection. She found more interesting fossils after her first great find as well.

At the gift shop, mum bought us each a fossil bag with three different fossils in it. You had to identify the fossils - I got an ammonite, a bivalve and a crinoid stem!

 Archaeopterix

  Megalosaurus

 Mary Anning Ichthyosaur

1 comment:

  1. Wow Jake, how exciting. How amazing that Mar Anning found the Ichthyosaur. Love Grandad

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