Rise of the Robosaurs at Marwell

Marwell Zoo is a marvellous (Marwell-vellous?) wildlife park located in Hampshire, in the south of England. Its vast, open acres are home to perhaps the widest variety of (very happy-looking) exotic ungulates in the UK (and much more besides, of course). For me, at least one visit per year is a must, but this summer the park has also installed sundry robo-saurians about the grounds as part of what it's calling 'Rise of the Dinosaurs'. To quote a famous delivery boy: "Just shut up and take my money!"

Photos mostly by Niroot (marked NP)

Restricted Area Five

After 42 years and countless family photos, Blackgang Chine's much-loved 'Dinosaurland' is no more. The majority of the park's endearingly grotesque and climbable fibreglass creations have, alas, gone the way of their living counterparts. However, this is not to say that the park has given up on saurian-themed clifftop gardens - rather, they've been busy developing a revamped Dinosaurland, one in which the creatures aren't content just to stand there looking less-than-pretty. That's right - they've only gone and bought a load of rubbery robosaurs. Welcome, then, to the enigmatically named Restricted Area 5...home to the some of the largest ugly dinosaurs in Britain! So it goes.

All photos by me, unless marked 'NP', in which case they're Niroot's.

Robosaurs in Rotterdam

Rotterdam seems to be a city in which every puffed-up, ever-so-avant garde architect of the last fifty years has been given free rein to erect whatever glass, steel, and/or jutting concrete monstrosity that they fancy. (As John Conway would say, 'take that, Rotterdam!') It seems only fitting, then, that the city should play host to the Living Dinosaurs expo - an exhibition of diverse, often impressively large, but never less than butt-ugly robot dinosaurs. Fans of prehistory-related kitsch will have a field day; palaeontologists may wish to avert their eyes.