The Fossils Gallery and collection

Is it dinosaur bone?

Continuing the dinosaur theme, whilst the BBC’s Planet Dinosaur series is on, here are some tips on how to tell if it is real dinosaur bone.

Is it a Dinosaur egg?

I often get people asking me if their object is a dinosaur egg. Here’s some useful tips on how to tell.

Museum of Mystery launched!

The Manchester Museum has launched a fantastic new website called: The interactive website helps you answer some of the most important questions on earth such as: Why do animals and plants need each other? What happened to the dinosaurs? What helps species survive? I know I am biased, but obviously the best bit is the [...]

Model collection

I thought I’d show you some of the highlights from our model collection this week. As you can see, some of the models date as far back as 1857. They are  made from plaster and are mostly  from old museum displays. They are a really useful resource for following changes in in how fossils have [...]

Velociraptor eating another dinosaur found!

It’s great to be back after the Easter break. I came across this interesting article this morning. The real significance is that it records behavior, which is almost never preserved in the fossil record.

Great A-level day with Altrincham Grammar School

A couple of weeks ago we had a great A-level day with students from Altrincham Grammar School. Louise Sutherland (from the learning team) and I met the group of students at about 10 and we went up to the Life Lab for the workshops. We began with the drawing fossils workshop, concentrating on bivalves, brachiopods [...]

Ginger dinosaurs and new glaciers!

I thought I’d post a couple of geology stories that have caught my eye this week: Dinosaurs had ginger feathers Research has just been published in Nature showing that the bristles of this 125-million-year-old dinosaur were in fact ginger-coloured feathers. Manchester Scientists find new glaciers in Albania A team of scientists from Manchester University have [...]