Yorkshire Museum

Yorkshire’s Jurassic World

Included in admission

Take an epic journey back through 150 million years of Yorkshire to discover lost giants and the changing worlds they inhabited in this award-winning exhibition.

From the depths of the deepest seas to the ancient coasts and tropical shallows, meet the dinosaurs and sea monsters that once roamed our vast and ever-changing landscapes. Experience each Jurassic world as the colossal creatures and their surroundings are brought to life using the latest research and ground-breaking technology.

Inspect the finest details of an ichthyosaur as its flesh and skin are superimposed over its preserved skeleton, tremble at a terrifying Megalosaur tooth as you stand amid its hunting habitat, and much more.

Rediscover our prehistoric predecessors through some of the oldest and most fascinating remains in the region as you step into ‘Yorkshire’s Jurassic World’.

Please note our Virtual Reality experience is currently out of order.

Exploring the Exhibition

Discovery

With a life size plesiosaur overhead and a dig zone where you can hunt for fossils, this gallery sets the scene for the exhibition. It looks at the history of the Earth, putting the Jurassic Period into context and introducing the ideas and discoveries that form the basis for much of what we know today about this period.

 

Coral Seas

Visitors are immersed in a tropical world of shallow waters alive with coral, fish, starfish and other sea life. Fossils from the period are displayed alongside illustrations and animations demonstrating the colours and movement of the creatures. CGI environments and LED lighting give the impression of being surrounded by the scenes, and a large rock structure in the centre invites you to sit and discover more. Visitors can also make rubbings of the replica fossils.

Deep Oceans

The next gallery plunges visitors down into the depths of the Jurassic oceans.  The gallery shows the strength of our collections from this period with ammonites and belemnites, once eaten by the sea dragons, and the rare fossilised remains of embryonic ichthyosaurs shown in a “collider case”. This technology allows the fossilised baby itchyosaurs to “swim” off the rock and around the case before your very eyes.

Dinosaur Country

Visitors then enter Dinosaur Country surrounded by trees, plants and dinosaurs. Here, CGI dinosaurs can be seen scampering across the fossilised muddy flats which contain real dinosaur footprints. A full size Megalosaur is depicted on the wall with fossils showing the size and ferocity of her teeth and claws.

On the opposite wall, a life size pterosaur is shown – these are the creatures which took to Yorkshire’s Jurassic skies, and visitors will be able to see some of their real footprints.

In the middle of the room will be Alan – proof that some of the largest dinosaurs that roamed the earth once lived in what we now call Yorkshire. Alan was named after the finder of a huge vertebra from the oldest true sauropod dinosaur ever found in the UK.

Sauropods (often referred to as ‘brontosaurs’) were plant-eaters, and the largest animals ever to have walked the Earth. They were a successful group for nearly 150 million years.

Fossilised plants, another strength of our collection, are also on display here to provide an idea about what the dinosaurs could see and what they ate.

Click here for Visitor Information for the Yorkshire Museum.