17/08/2026
🐊 REBUILDING A BRITISH PREHISTORIC CROCODILIAN! 🦴🇬🇧
Something VERY cool is taking shape in our Fossil Prep Lab this summer… 👀
We are currently working through a collection of fossil bones belonging to Diplocynodon hantoniensis — an extinct alligator-like crocodilian that once lived right here in the UK around 35 million years ago!
Yes… we once had animals like this swimming around! 🤯🐊
These particular fossils were discovered on the Isle of Wight and date from the Late Eocene, a time when Britain’s climate and landscape were very different from today.
Diplocynodon belonged to an ancient branch of the alligator family and lived in Britain during one of the last periods of our geological history when crocodilian-type reptiles could still be found here.
Rather than simply putting all these individual fossils into a display case, we’ve decided to set ourselves a challenge…
We’re going to try to reconstruct the animal! 🐊🦴
Hundreds of fossil fragments are being carefully examined, compared with published scientific research and identified — from vertebrae and limb bones to the incredible pieces of bony armour, called osteoderms, that once protected its body.
You can already see we are beginning to map the skeleton out across the tables in the lab.
And the best bit?
👉 We’re doing it right in front of you!
Throughout the summer, visitors to Telford Natural History Museum at Exotic Zoo can look into our working Fossil Preparation Lab and watch the reconstruction develop as more and more of this ancient British reptile is identified and pieced back together. And if you look really closely, Tom, our artistic palaeontologist is sculpting broken and missing parts to help us on our quest to recreate this amazing animal 🐊
How much of our 35-million-year-old crocodilian can we rebuild? 🤔
Keep checking back throughout the summer and watch it come back together… bone by bone! 🐊🦴🔬
