Thread | Brutkey

This is a reproduction of one of my earliest #FossilFriday posts on this platform (foolishly, I let them all auto-delete). It's the Missouri Leviathan. Aka the American Mastodon.

Now housed in the central hall of #NHMLondon, this fossil was unearthed as part of a 'graveyard' of #Mastodon fossils by Albert Koch in 1840.

It's fair to say that Koch, being a showman interested in making money, took some liberties with his reconstruction of the fossilised animals he had found...

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The American Mastodon (Mastodon americanum) on a large plinth in one of the bays in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum in London. The fossilised skeleton is seen from near face on, with the tusks of the animal curving up and above the viewer. The lighting in the bay causes shadows of the animal's ribcage to be cast onto the back wall and up onto the ribbed, arched ceiling of the bay. The colours of the bay comprise the brighly lit but muted yellows, greys and browns of the terracotta tiling and the black, grey and white of the mosaic floor tiling. A mother and her son are standing to the bottom right of the image, reading the sign for the display, with the Mastodon towering ominously above them.

An older photo of the east side of the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum in London, as viewed from the upper west side near the entrance at night. The scene is a mixture of shadow and brightly lit areas from spot and other lighting. The ornate, terracotta-tiled architecture dominates the photo, with columns, church-like alcoves, and arches curving across the view. In the bottom-left corner, an alcove is visible containing an elephant-like skeleton with its large head and curved tusks pointing out into the hall.