The giant skeleton of the blue whale which has hung inside the Natural History Museum for eight decades was held together with newspaper.

Staff relocating the 25-metre long animal discovered a number of copies of the Kent Messenger newspaper, which was being used to hold bones together.

The editions used to hold the skeleton together include the Christmas Eve edition of the local paper from 1932.

The blue whale, which was bought by the museum from a merchant for £250 in 1891, will replace Dippy the Diplodocus, who has stood in Hintze Hall for 35 years.

A museum spokesperson said: "Various issues of the Kent Messenger have been discovered in the 'stuffing' of our iconic blue whale skeleton here in South Kensington.

"Workmen onsite clearly had connections to the county and perhaps even intended on creating this time capsule for the modern museum to eventually uncover.

"As our conservators have carefully deinstalled the specimen, in preparation for its arrival in Hintze Hall in 2017, the Plaster-of-Paris-like material that was used to conjoin the fragile bones in the 1930s has unveiled its secrets."

From early 2018, Dippy, who is between 156 and 145 million years old and 68.8ft long, will go on tour around the UK.