First look at the real Jurassic Park: David Attenborough unveils £80m dinosaur attraction
If the Dorset museum goes ahead, visitors will be transported 150 million years back in time to admire swimming plesiosaurs
What's this about a real Jurassic Park?
Actually, it's called Jurassic Cove and will be part of Jurassica – "the world’s most spectacular prehistoric visitor attraction".
Copyright issues, eh? Those Hollywood lawyers are ruthless.
Nope, it's the scientist journalist who came up with the idea, Michael Hanlon, who is keen to avoid confusion.
"The Jurassic Cove will not be a theme park display, but a spectacular and precise snapshot in time that will bring the heritage of the Jurassic Cove to life for the first time," Hanlon said.
Where does David Attenborough come into all this?
He's the project patron and unveiled a 1:100 scale model of Jurassic Cove yesterday. See above.
It doesn't look as tropical as I'd imagined.
That's because it's in Dorset. The Isle of Portland, to be exact, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001.
It's part of the 95-mile Jurassic Coast, which stretches from East Devon to Old Harry Rocks in Dorset, and is thought to be the only single site in the world that displays evidence of millions of years of geological history.
So those cliffs aren't just a pretty backdrop for Broadchurch. Will David Tennant and Olivia Colman have to contend with dinosaurs as well as murderers in series three?
They and the rest of the estimated 600,000 annual visitors will be able to marvel at galleries of fossils, prehistoric plants and shells, a salt water lagoon, sea caves, rock stacks, arches, living corals, pterosaurs perching on the rock ledges, ancient marine organisms and swimming plesiosaurs...
Stop! Plesiosaurs?
Yep, robotic ones in an aquarium:
Images courtesy of Azureus Design
And the perching pterosaurs?
Life-size sculptures.
I'm there.
Not until 2021 and only if Hanlon manages to raise the £80 million it'll cost to create Jurassica.
Despite having the backing of the Royal Society and Natural History Museum, the project has so far only secured a £300,000 grant from a government-funded local business scheme.
How am I going to pass the time?
Well, since you asked...
How well do you know Jurassic Park?
Watch the first trailer for Jurassic Park sequel Jurassic World
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