A 180-million-year-old fossil has quickly become one of the star exhibits at the UK’s newest museum, after it was identified as possibly the oldest known example of a vertebrate embryo found in Britain.
The Yorkshire Museum of Natural History in Sheffield opened on Saturday, the ribbon cut by paleontologist and ichthyosaur expert Dean Lomax with a baryonyx claw.
To add to the excitement of the day, Lomax was able to identify that one of the objects on display was much more interesting and important than it might appear at first glance.
“I was very excited; it was like a kid in a sweet shop,” said James Hogg, the 23-year-old driving force behind the new museum. “As far as we know, it’s the oldest example of a vertebrate embryo found in Britain. It was discovered by Dean on opening day.
“We just thought it might be a few vertebrae, but Dean identified that the whole embryo was there, he managed to identify the skull, the teeth and the whole body, including the fin and ribs and everything.”
Hogg said it was undoubtedly the oldest complete ichthyosaur embryo ever found in Britain. It was found on the Yorkshire coast, north of Whitby.
The new museum, in the former Edwardian headquarters of a steelworks, is small but has big ambitions.
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements and content funded by third parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Hogg said the opening weekend had exceeded expectations, with people lining the street to get in.
Once inside, visitors would have seen about 1,000 objects on display, including minerals and fossils found in the region, such as a mammoth tusk, a domesticated dog, a crocodile skull and the lower jaw of a 12-foot plesiosaur.
The museum grew out of Hogg’s interest and passion for natural history, which he said had really taken off over the past four years.
While an economics student at the London School of Economics, he regularly shuttled between the British Museum and the Natural History Museum to feed his fascination with all things archeology and palaeontology. “Libraries were always busy on campus, so I used to prefer to study there.”
There are museums in the north of England that have natural history collections but, until now, there was not a single northern museum dedicated to the subject.
This was Hogg’s motivation for having a museum in his hometown, in addition to the desire for it to be a useful and bona fide research institution. “We have more lab space than gallery space, and we have ambitions to move to a bigger place,” he said.
“It’s such an interesting topic. It’s such a fascinating concept: really understanding life before human existence.”
The opening of the museum was boosted by TV naturalist Chris Packham, who tweeted his support, noting how cool it was that it opened with a baryonyx claw.