#MarineWildlife - The skeleton of a blue whale beached on the Wexford coast in the late 19th century has now taken pride of place at London’s Natural History Museum.
As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the museum paid the equivalent of €30,000 for the carcass of the giant marine mammal that washed up in Wexford Harbour in 1891.
The specimen was subsequently rendered at the museum’s own ‘whale pit’, which operated till the 1940s, and its skeleton was put into storage for decades.
That’s until the museum’s directors decided that a new display in its grand entrance hall would help reposition the institution as one that puts first the conservation of today’s natural world, according to the Guardian.
In short, that meant saying goodbye to Dippy, the famous diplodocus skeleton that is actually a cast of a dinosaur fossil found in the United States — and welcoming a more local but more importantly awe-inspiring and authentic example of life that exists on this planet today.
Hanging the new attraction was no mean feat, however, as The Telegraph reports how a crucial bolt was sheared off in the middle of hoisting the 4.5 tonne beast in the museum’s Hintze Hall.