Dippy is a composite Diplodocus skeleton in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and the holotype of the species Diplodocus carnegii. It is considered the most famous single dinosaur skeleton in the world, due to the numerous plaster casts donated by Andrew Carnegie to several major museums around the world at the beginning of the 20th century.
Dippy
Discovery of a large thigh bone, announced in the New York Journal and Advertiser on December 11, 1898. It was this article which first caught Carnegie's attention; in the margin of his copy he wrote to William Holland: “can you buy this for Pittsburgh?” The fanciful pictures were scaled up versions of Marsh's 1883 drawing of Brontosaurus.
Dippy on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Dippy in the Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum in 2008
Diplodocus was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a Neo-Latin term derived from Greek διπλός (diplos) "double" and δοκός (dokos) "beam", in reference to the double-beamed chevron bones located in the underside of the tail, which were then considered unique.
Diplodocus
Caudal vertebrae of D. carnegii showing the double-beamed chevron bones to which the genus name refers, Natural History Museum, London
Reconstruction of D. carnegii with horizontal neck, flexible whip tail, keratinous spines and nostrils low on the snout
Barnum Brown (left) and Henry Osborn (right) excavating a femur of Diplodocus hallorum (AMNH 223), 1897.