Sir David Attenborough Befriends a Giant Animated Dinosaur at the Natural History Museum in London

In a wondrous clip from the PBS Nature series Museum Alive with David Attenborough, the legendary host befriended a female Diplodocus at the Natural History Museum in London. As the animated dinosaur slowly wandered around, Attenborough explained that “Dippy” was a vegetarian, with a long neck that helped her reach into trees for food and a long tail to balance that long neck.

But why was her neck so long? The most likely explanation seems to be that it helped her to reach leaves in all sorts of difficult places. But in order to reach the highest, most succulent leaves in the forest, it seems likely that Dippy would’ve reared up on her hind legs.

She also had distinct hearing capabilities like birds and abilities similar to modern day elephants.

A small bird makes and hears high pitch sounds, whereas large birds communicate with low-pitch sounds. So, huge Dippy with her inner ear bones shaped like those of a bird could probably hear very low pitched frequencies of sound. We know that elephants today can communicate using infrasound. … And those sounds travel through the ground sometimes for many miles, and are detected by elephants through their large, flat sensitive feet. Dippy, too, had large flat feet. So maybe the giant dinosaurs communicated with one another in much the same way