London visitors' last chance to see Dippy ahead of tour Published duration 4 January 2017

media caption Dippy is to be replaced by the skeleton of a whale

A museum's famous 112-year-old dinosaur is set to leave London for a national tour.

Dippy the diplodocus, a 70ft long (21.3m) plaster-cast sauropod replica made up of 292 bones, is set to leave the Natural History Museum in Kensington later this year.

A six-person team will start a three-and-a-half week task of dismantling of Dippy on Thursday.

He is being moved as the museum is having a front-of-house makeover.

Dippy's spot is being taken by the skeleton of an 83ft (25.2m) female blue whale, weighing 4.5 tonnes.

image copyright PA image caption Dippy was first installed at the museum in 1905

She will take up position in a diving pose as she is suspended from the ceiling of the hall.

The whale is also more than 100 years old but - unlike Dippy - she is not a cast.

image copyright PA image caption About 90 million people are estimated to have seen Dippy

On Thursday, construction will also begin on a tunnel to protect visitors during the dismantling of Dippy.

This tunnel will take three to four days to build and will almost totally obscure Dippy from view.

Parts of Dippy will be cleaned and repaired ahead of the two-year tour.

The tour will start in 2018, with Dorset County Museum set to be the first stop from February to May.

The Dippy story

media caption Head of Conservation at Natural History Museum tells Today Dippy is like "huge 3D jigsaw puzzle"