The museum announced on Thursday that Dippy, who has graced
its cathedral-like central hall for 35 years, will make way for
the bones of a blue whale that has been hanging in a different
hall since 1938.
"The story of the blue whale reminds us of the scale of our
responsibility to the planet," Museum Director Michael Dixon
said in a statement.
Dippy is expected to go on tour around the country, but plans to
remove it from pride of place in the museum has caused much
distress on social media.
"What?! The @NHM_London wants to replace Dippy with some daft
whale? Crazy idea," @johnmiller opined on Twitter.
Meanwhile, @wriggy suggested that "Replacing Dippy the dinosaur
with a blue whale is the equivalent of replacing the Eiffel
Tower with a stack of toilet rolls."
(Reporting by Jeremy Gaunt; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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