Shivers down the spine Dinosaurs of China

The UK city of Nottingham knows a thing or two about punching above its weight. In 1979, one of its football teams, Nottingham Forest, won the European Cup – possibly the greatest feat in the history of English football. In 1980, they did it again.

Now the story of a hitherto-unfashionable Nottingham institution pulling off a major coup has been replayed. Landing an exhibition called Dinosaurs of China is possibly the greatest achievement for an English natural history museum – a prize many bigger and more successful ones will be eyeing with envy. It is the first time that many of the world’s most important and iconic dinosaur fossils have travelled outside China. Some have never even been seen by the public before. When it is over, they will return to Beijing. Nottingham 1, the rest of the world 0.

It is not a large exhibition – just 23 specimens across four galleries – but what it lacks in size it makes up for in impact. Some of the star names will send shivers down the spines of dinosaur fans in the same way that Shilton, Francis, McGovern and Clough do for Forest fans. Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor, Mei long, Gigantoraptor and more: these are the famous, feathered dinosaurs that, over the past two decades, have changed our understanding of prehistoric life.


Adam Smith examines dinosaur royalty, the Sinosauropteryx Dinosaurs of China

The first to be discovered was Sinosauropteryx, which came to the world’s attention in 1996. It was found in early Cretaceous deposits in Yixian, north-east China, that were already known for their stunning fossil insects, fish and turtles.

Yixian is a lagerstätte – a site of exceptional fossilisation where soft tissues are often preserved alongside bones and teeth. Around 120 million years ago, it was a forested wetland next to an active volcano. Frequent eruptions and toxic emissions killed the local fauna, burying them in ash or sending their corpses to the bottom of lakes where they were rapidly buried. “That’s the reason we’ve got soft tissue preservation, which is what makes them so special,” said TV presenter Chris Packham, who opened the exhibition.

The Sinosauropteryx – a small, predatory theropod – is so finely preserved that a halo of soft tissue is visible around its skeleton. Palaeontologists interpreted this as a coat of downy feathers, probably used for display or insulation. The specimen in the exhibition is the original fossil, a piece of dinosaur royalty.

The real deal

To me it was like seeing the Archaeopteryx in Berlin’s natural history museum: familiar from magazines and books, but wonderfully and unexpectedly vivid in the flesh. I had a similar feeling upon seeing Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic in London’s Royal Academy of Arts earlier this year. No amount of studying reproductions quite prepares you for the original.

The sleeping dragon, Mei long Dinosaurs of China

Sinosauropteryx was quickly followed by other downy dinosaurs, including the velociraptor-like Sinornithosaurus and tyrannosaur Dilong, both represented here by replicas. There is also the genuine “holotype” specimen of Caudipteryx, which had long feathers on its arms and tail. “These are the pieces of evidence that prove beyond any doubt that dinosaurs have feathers, and that birds evolved from dinosaurs,” said Adam Smith, the exhibition’s curator.

Another butterflies-in-the-stomach moment is seeing the holotype of Microraptor gui, the four-winged dinosaur described in 2003. Though probably a glider rather than a flier, it had well-developed flight feathers on its arms and legs. This offered support for another controversial hypothesis: that the evolution of flight went through a four-winged stage.

The bird-dinosaur link is made even clearer by a 3D-printed model of the exquisite Mei long, the sleeping dragon. It has its head tucked under its forearm like a sleeping bird. There are also fossils of early birds, including the tooth-beaked Yanornis.

The four-winged Microraptor gui Dinosaurs of China

So why Nottingham? The university has a campus in China and a history of cultural exchanges. But the real mover and shaker was Wang Qi, an assistant professor of architecture who specialises in designing museums. In 2011, he started working with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, where many of the feathered dinosaurs are housed and which was renovating its own museum.

He floated the idea of an exhibition, pulled some strings and somehow pulled it off.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Nottingham Forest will probably never win the European Cup again. These dinosaurs may never be put on public display again. If you’re a fan, you need to be able to say: I was there.

Dinosaurs of China: Ground shakers to feathered fliers is at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, with a complementary exhibition at Lakeside Arts, until 29 October