A few of us went to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff on Thursday 2nd December 2021. This was a DIY visit. However the palaeontology curator, Cindy Howells, met us and gave us a tour of the Geology of Wales exhibition, including Lily’s Fossil Footprint and Dracoraptor Hanigani. The latter was named for Wales and its finders where it was found in 2014 – a small dinosaur with feathers. The photo below shows Cindy explaining some of the features of Draco’s skeleton displayed in the case.

We travelled through Deep Time from the Big Bang to the last Ice Age. Each time section of the exhibition showed the geological features of the area now called Wales at a specific era: PreCambrian through to Quaternary. As we progressed through each section, we saw the emergence of living things and the kind of environments which encouraged them to evolve. Cindy was full of information. Her enthusisam brought the exhibiton to life, and we were amazed at the marvellous story which unravelled!

Our deep thanks go to Cindy for her warm welcome and enthusiatic description of the items in the exhibition, including Silurian/Ordovician fossils from Llandrindod Wells, Builth Wells and Llandegley.

You can view some of the exhibition on these links: https://museum.wales/cardiff/evolution-of-wales/ and https://museum.wales/cardiff/whatson/11365/Lilys-Fossil-Footprint/