FREE exhibition Dinosaurs In Your Garden, which will run in the Top of the Town’s Willis Museum until August 2, is part of the larger Dinofest celebration taking place across Hampshire throughout 2015.
It’s all perfectly timed to coincide with the spike in interest in the extinct creatures this summer thanks to the release of the cinematic smash hit Jurassic World.
Dinosaurs In Your Garden explores the link between dinosaurs and birds including aspects of their make-up such as feathers, eggs and claws.
On display are a number of impressive exhibits including a cast of an Archaeopteryx on loan from Teylers Museum in Haarlem, in the Netherlands.
Young visitors may be most wowed by the huge cast of a skull of Tarbosaurus which really dominates the space opposite the doors to the venue’s popular cafe.
This large theropod dinosaur had roughly 60 large teeth and its name, unsurprisingly, translates as “alarming lizard”.
Other items of interest include a fascinating bird’s egg cast which was found in Wyoming USA and is on loan from the National Museum in Wales.
Some of Jurassic World’s stars can also be found among the treasures: a huge T-Rex footprint relief Tyrannosauripus Pillmore takes pride of place on one wall, and if you look carefully, you'll find a cast of a lethal curved velociraptor claw in one of the cabinets.
The relief of the Tyrannosaurus Rex print discovered by Charles Pillmore
A single phalanx tail vertebra of a juvenile T-Rex can only lead one to imagine how large a fully grown tail must have been!
This exhibition is part of DinoFest 2015, which is running across multiple Hampshire Cultural Trust venues in addition to the Willis Museum including Milestones Museum in Basingstoke, SeaCity Museum in Southampton, Red House Museum, Alton Museum, Aldershot Military Museum, Andover Museum, Eastleigh Museum, Westbury Manor Museum, Gosport Gallery and Winchester Discovery Centre.
Children can collect a dino tracker card in any of the venues and start collecting stickers in order to be in with a chance of winning a number of prizes.
Full details are online at dinofest2015.co.uk.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article