The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
Front façade of the museum in January 2006
An 1881 plan showing the original arrangement of the museum. (Link to current floor plans).
The Comic News reporting on the movement to South Kensington in 1863
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.
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.