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For 35 years, the
huge skeleton cast, 4.25 metres (14 ft) high and 21 metres long,
has been the first sight visitors see when they enter the London
museum's main entrance.
On Thursday, a team begins the three-week process of dismantling
Dippy before conservators spend 12 months preparing the delicate
plaster-of-Paris cast for the journey around Britain where it
will go on show at eight locations from 2018 until 2020.
From the end of 2020, a bronze cast of Dippy will then go on
display outside the museum.
Scottish-born American industrialist Andrew Carnegie originally
presented the 292-bone cast to the museum in 1905, and it has
held its prominent position in the main entrance hall since
1979.
Dippy will be replaced by a 25.2 metre real skeleton of a blue
whale as part of a major overhaul.
Diplodocus was first described as a new type of dinosaur in 1878
by Professor Othniel C. Marsh at Yale University. The herbivore
species lived sometime between 156 and 145 million years ago and
belongs to a group called sauropods, meaning 'lizard feet'.
(Removes extraneous word in intro)
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)
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