Dinosaur Track exhibit in Bristol Museum

["Jarno Peschier" <jarno@nedstat.nl>]

Hi everyone,

I've been to Bristol for a couple of days (because of
http://www.ggy.bris.ac.uk/geocomp/geocomp.html where an article based upon
my Masters thesis was presented) and visited the rather nice museum of
Bristol the last day I was there.

Luckily for me there had just started only two or three days before a
temporary exhibition on dinosaur (and other) tracks that will tour England
and Wales (all explanatory texts were in Welsh first, then in English ;-)).
It wasn't that big or didn't contain that much really new and/or exciting
information for me, but still was interesting.

Especially to really see some (casts of) real tracks, where before I had
always had to be content with photographs in books; you don't see that many
tracks in musea actually (at least I didn't). And the cast of a theropod
skeleton that was there looked okay as well. Haven't seen that much complete
dinosaur casts "in the flesh" either, actually. Based on my knowledge I'd
say it was an Allosaurid of some kind, but I cannot be sure since it wasn't
labeled in any way.

The small part on dinosaurs in the fixed exhibits of the museum were rather
terrible. They obviously hadn't been updated in litterally ages:
Tyrannosaurus standing erect, the erect Dollo version of Iguanodon, and even
TAFKAT (="The animal formerly known as Trachodon"), almost in exactly the
pose I remember from some old (1973?) book on prehistoric history I have at
home. Apatosaurus was named correctly however, and almost always with a
"formerly 'Brontosaurus'" in parentheses.

The section with (casts of) Plesiosaurs, Ichtyosaurs and the occasional
Mosasaur was really impressive however. I've never really saw any of those
"live" as well and I must say some of them were great. The Bristol museum
includes a 3D Ichtyosaur (not flattened, but preserved with head, large
parts of the body and the fins/paddles in actual 3D pose) and an example of
a pregnant Ichtyosaur with a a tiny, about 5 cm (?) long embryo just below
the pelvic region below the tail.

Together with the nice sections on prehistoric archaeology, Roman times,
Egyptian times and the Middle Ages in and around Bristol (and the Bristol
Biplane replica hanging from the ceiling, numerous stuffed animals, old
pianos, model trains and probably the art, which I did not have a look at)
this all makes the Bristol City Museum and Art Galery very much worth a
visit if you happen to be in the area.

Jarno Peschier

Compass Interactive / NedStat
(ICQ: 11364879)

P.S. Don't know exactly until which date the track exhibition will stay in
Bristol, but I could look that up since I took an information leaflet which
I'm sure I still have somewhere. Mail me if you'd like to know.