All language subtitles for Natural History Museum World of Wonder Series 1 Part 1 1080p

In the heart of London
is an incredible world.

The Natural History Museum,

home to 8O million sensations
of nature

from dinosaurs to whales,

giant squid
to billion-year-old rocks.

It's probably the most important
fossil of a dinosaur

that there is anywhere in the world.

Now, our cameras have been allowed
behind the scenes...

This rather large crate
reminds me of something

from the movie Indiana Jones.

...to meet the team...

...keeping it up and running...

Who's a good boy?

I think they're gorgeous.

...welcoming up to five million
visitors a year...

...and bringing its unrivalled
treasures to life?

So this is the oldest thing
that we have in the museum.

It's actually older than
the solar system.

In this episode, the museum prepares
for its biggest-ever exhibition.

You've got wizarding world
and magic and you've got a dinosaur.

What else do you need?

A major new investigation
about its star attraction.

And getting up close and personal

with some of the museum's
strangest specimens.

See those little faces?
Aren't they cute?

You are looking at
the backside of a maggot,

which always makes me giggle.

Here we go, to infinity and beyond!

This is the Natural History Museum

as you've never seen it before.

The Natural History Museum holds
the greatest natural history

collection in the world.

Thousands of visitors flood
through its doors each day to see

everything from dinosaurs to dodos,

sea monsters to giant sloths.

And the star attraction that draws
the biggest crowds is Hope,

a giant skeleton of the largest
mammal on Earth, the blue whale.

The first time people come
in and they see her

diving down towards them,
there's a lot of wow moments

and the children are great,
they're like...

Every visitor to the museum
will pass under

this four-and-a-half-tonne,
25-metre-long skeleton.

And checking she's safe to hang high
over their heads is a crucialjob

that can only happen out of hours.

It won't be a good look, Rob,
if you crash into it.

OK, I'm just saying.

Today a team of specialists are
checking her over...

Big bit coming, look.

Ooh, look at that.

...led by Head of Conservation,
Lorraine Cornish.

So you can appreciate access to Hope
is very challenging for us.

She looks magnificent, but looking
after her takes a little bit

more time and thought.

When you're 130 years old,
like Hope,

your skeleton is fragile,

so needs to be kept under
constant watch.

We go through the whole length
of the skeleton.

Bit like a medical record
where you check through

and then an inspection.

Just less is more.

I just need him to make sure
less is more, all right?

No more, Rob. Back off.

As soon as they get up close,

the team spot that Hope
needs attention.

Underneath the skull
in the palate area

there's quite a few cracks.

And on some of the vertebrae
they're quite large and heavy.

They've got some cracks and joins.

Are they opening up any more?

Are they stable?

They now have just three clays
to check over 200 bones

to make sure she's secure.

Even though Hope's been in the
museum for over a century,

very little is known about her life,

but that might all
be about to change.

Behind the scenes, hundreds of
world-class experts

are uncovering secrets
about the natural world.

Richard Sabin has been
the museum's whale specialist

for the past 29 years...

...and he's embarking on a new
investigation into Hope.

This rather large crate,

which reminds me of something
from the movie Indiana Jones,

actually contains a surprising
part of Hope.

The crate contains parts
from Hope's vast mouth.

This is the filter mechanism,
the strainer that blue whales

have inside their mouths
to strain their food from the ocean,

things like krill, small fish.

We've got about 800
of these inside this crate

and this isn't something
that people get to see.

This is something that scientists
get to play with,

and I'm in
a very privileged position.

You know, we've had Hope
in our collections

for just under 130 years

and she's effectively been a mystery
for most of that time.

I've made it my personal mission
to basically become a detective

and find out as much information
as possible about Hope's life,

to add flesh, if you like, to the
bones to really develop that story.

Today, Richard's taking tiny samples
from Hope's mouth plates,

which will be analysed using
cutting-edge techniques

to reveal new information
about her life.

This is where it starts to look
a little bit like I'm a drug dealer.

This may just look like dust, but
actually it's very important dust...

...and we've developed techniques now
that allow us to extract

very, very detailed information
using chemical analysis

from these individual plates,

and this will be used to answer
more questions about Hope's life.

Richard is hoping the samples will
tell him exactly where Hope lived

and how far she travelled.

But first they must be sent
to a specialist lab

before he gets his answers.

The dinosaur gallery is one of the
most popular and terrifying spaces

in the museum,

housing skeletons of T Rex
and triceratops...

...alongside life-size
animatronic models.

So if something goes wrong,

it's a big problem.

This morning, engineers Alex and
Glenn have had an urgent call-out

to one of the malfunctioning
robotic dinosaurs.

So this one we think needs to have
the back of his neck looked at.

There are a lot of children
genuinely terrified of these things.

Recently these models were taken
down into our workshops

and had the fur
and the feathers added,

rather more like the fluffy toys
we sell in the gift shop.

The motor in its neck
has stopped working

and now the dino's head
won't move properly.

To avoid some
very disappointed kids,

it's crucial they get it
up and running

before the museum opens for the day.

We've got deadlines
to stick to here.

We've got the public in in half
an hour so we've got to get this

down into the workshop
and have a closer look.

Can you make this part move, Glenn?

The head turn, that one.

Alex and Glenn need to open her up.

Children come to the museum
and expect to see them working.

It's a big disappointment
when they're not.

It's one of the things
that people complain about

if the dinosaurs are not working.

Fortunately, with a spanner, a spare
part and a bit of elbow grease...

Right, let's get it back upstairs.

...the dino is up and running again.

I'll have it running before ten.

He says he feels better.

That's a job well done.

Children will be in in half an hour.

Back to terrifying the kids.

Coming up,
Lorraine is up against it.

This is where the magic
is going to happen.

This is where the exhibition
is going to be.

And the world's most-prized
dinosaur fossil.

I'm a little bit scared to touch it.

It's just absolutely priceless.

It's impossible to put a value
on this specimen.

The Natural History Museum
is gearing up

for the biggest exhibition
it's ever held.

Fantastic Beasts:
The Wonder of Nature

is inspired by the famous movie
about the wizarding world,

and the museum needs it
to be a huge hit.

They'll be displaying fantastical
creatures from the film

alongside some of the real-life
animals that inspired them.

This is where the magic
is going to happen.

This is where the exhibition
is going to be.

But time is tight for Head
of Conservation, Lorraine Cornish,

who has just weeks before
it's set to open to the public.

So now we're ready to start
installing over 120 objects.

It will take six people
a month to do that

so everyone's getting
all the specimens ready

and then this space
will be so busy with people

right up to the 11th hour, normally.

Literally the night before,
we're usually still doing things.

Today, Lorraine is getting her first
peek at some very special items

from the film that have just arrived
from Warner Brothers.

With thousands of fans expected to
visit the exhibition,

it's vital that everything
is in perfect condition

and it doesn't disappoint.

These are super special,

so I want to make sure
we're looking after them.

This very large, odd-looking thing
is the horn of an erumpent,

which is one of the fantastic beasts
in the film.

We're just checking it over to make
sure everything's as it should be.

There are some cracks here,
but they're deliberate.

They're not ones I should be worried
about, so that's OK.

It's not every day you handle
an erumpent horn, though.

Few people can say that.

It's just great. It's such fun.

The erumpent is one of the fantasy
creatures that escapes

from Newt Scamander's suitcase

and is a bit like
a magical rhinoceros.

So this is Newt's suitcase

and who wouldn't be excited
at carrying it?

So Newt Scamander
is the main character

and he's what's called
a magizoologist

and he goes around the world

and he looks for and studies
fantastic beasts.

Getting all this stuff out

is like Christmas and birthday
rolled into one.

This is the wand for Newt Scamander.

I so wish I had the magic wand.

Sometimes I just want to say,
"exhibition ready" and it's done.

Having unpacked today's movie props,

Lorraine now has
just over 100 to go,

including the exhibition showpiece -

a brand-new dinosaur.

The Natural History Museum is home
to over 8O million different items,

but its rarest are kept under
lock and key,

hidden away at the back
of the museum's main hall

in the Treasures Gallery.

Today, one of the museum's dinosaur
experts, Susie Maidment,

has been granted special access

to examine the most-prized fossil
in the entire museum.

This is Archaeopteryx.

It's probably the most important
fossil of a dinosaur

that there is anywhere in the world,

and I'm a little bit scared
to touch it.

It's just absolutely priceless.

It's impossible to put
a value on this specimen.

At 147 million years old,

this bird-like dinosaur
is so highly valued

because it was the first fossil
to reveal that every species of bird

alive today evolved from dinosaurs.

Susie's been at the museum
for two years

and is one of the very few
experts allowed this close.

She's making a record of the fossil
for other specialists to study.

It is a bit stressful
being this close to it.

This case is almost never opened.

It's very, very exciting for me
to be able to have my head

inside it right now and to be able
to get a really close

look at this fossil
without the glass in the way.

Archaeopteryx was discovered
in Germany in 1861

and has been at the museum
for over 150 years.

And it's the mix of its features
that makes it so intriguing.

This specimen has a number
of characteristics of both

dinosaurs and birds.

We have these beautiful feathers

which are so characteristic
of birds.

We've also got a wishbone,

which is a bone in the shoulder
region which helps birds fly.

And we've got a claw on the foot

that allows the birds
to perch on branches.

There are also a number of quite
clearly dinosaurian-like features.

You can see it's got a very,
very long tail and we don't

have tails in modern birds
that aren't just made of feathers.

So these sorts of features make
it much more similar to dinosaurs

than to birds.

I thinkjurassic Park has a huge
amount to answer for,

for our opinions
about what dinosaurs look like.

We tend to think of dinosaurs
as being these kind of big, scaly,

reptilian-like animals.

But actually what we now know

is that many of the meat-eating
dinosaurs were feathered

and I think this kind of changes
our opinion about

what dinosaurs might have been like.

They were probably very bird-like
in their behaviour

and actually many of them we
wouldn't have been able to

distinguish from birds today.

And I think when you look at
some types of bird,

if you've ever looked
an ostrich in the eye,

I think they look a bit
like dinosaurs, actually.

Everyone who works at
the Natural History Museum

has a favourite part
of the collection,

including housekeeping supervisor
Debbie Marlow.

Hers are the ancient skulls
and skeletons.

We are now entering Human Evolution.

This is my lovely heads.

I think they're gorgeous!

I mean, look at their lovely faces.

Nice chiselled eyebrows.

Nice dinky little ears.

Very handsome.

I'm giving them a lovely massage now

cos they deserve it.

It's my little salon.

Debbie's favourite gallery
displays skulls, skeletons

and models of early humans going
back seven million years.

He could do a bit of a haircut.

I'll have to tidy that up.

Beard needs doing.

I think any barber would love
to have him.

It looks quite cheeky, actually.

He's quite a cheeky chappy,
isn't he?

He's like, "Hey, baby!"

"All right. Oh, yeah. I'm all
right, ain't I? What you think?"

He's one of them.

"Hey, look at me!"

He's definitely not my type, though.

He can smoulder as much as he wants,
it's not working on me. Sorry, love.

Should have jeans and T-shirt on.

He'd be all right then.

Look, do that - censored!

Should put a big warning up
before everyone comes in.

Ready for everyone to come
and have a good look at him now

in all his glory.

Over in the museum's main
hall, the conservation team

have been investigating
the cracks in Hope,

the museum's 50-year-old
Blue Whale.

Now, Head of Conservation Lorraine
is giving the museum star exhibit

a final inspection to ensure
she's safe for the thousands

of visitors who will walk
underneath her.

So this will take me up,
up and away...

...so that I can get up close
and personal with Hope

and have a look.

Here we go, to infinity and beyond.

I always worry that I'm going to go
and hit her, but I know I won't.

I don't mind heights,
but this is quite wobbly,

so the height's all right, but then
when it starts to wibble-wobble...

...it can be tricky.

I'm looking at cracks,

so the mandibles
are amazingly heavy,

and if you can imagine,
the structure is being supported.

So we're really looking at
structural stability.

We're just watching some
of the historic older cracks

so that they're not opening up.

We have to just make sure
that we're happy with those cracks.

They haven't opened any wider.

That's why we take lots of pictures
and just keep an eye on things.

Fortunately, Hope's cracks
haven't opened up

and she can be passed as secure.

SHE SIGHS

Here we go.

Job done for now.

Lovely, lovely.

Behind closed doors, whale expert
Richard Sabin is trying to uncover

the mysteries of Hope,
the Blue Whale's life.

He's keen to find out exactly
where Hope may have lived

and how far she travelled.

It's been weeks since he sent Hope's
samples for investigation,

He's received the results
and they're extraordinary.

The analysis of the chemical make-up
of Hope's mouth plates means

he can now chart previously unknown
details of where she migrated

during the last few years
of her life.

What we're actually looking
at here is Hope's journey,

1886 into 1897.

This is the route that she would
have took from the north

between Iceland and Norway,
south towards Cape Verde.

Then we have her return journey.

This is her going north again.

We can see that every year Hope
was effectively doing a round trip

from the feeding grounds
in the north,

down to the warmer waters
off the west coast of Africa.

Looking at this distance on the map,

you're talking about 6,000 miles
in the space of a single year.

That's remarkable for any animal,

let alone an animal
that's out in the ocean.

The fact that I'm plotting a journey
that was made by a Blue Whale

over 140 years ago really does quite
blow my mind in all honesty.

And to think that we could actually
add information about her life

in so much detail,
it makes it very emotional.

It's something that you don't
normally encounter

with museum specimens
in natural history collections.

But around two years before Hope
died, the trail runs cold.

In the penultimate year of her life,
that's 1899 into 1890,

the data becomes very, very unclear.

She's still in these warmer waters
off the west coast of Africa...

...and she stays there
and we don't really know why.

This is where the real detective
work comes in.

Richard needs more tests to find out
why Hope suddenly stopped migrating.

The museum's biggest exhibits might
pull in the crowds,

but less than 1% of its collection
is on display to the public.

The rest is kept for research

in special access areas
like The Cocoon,

which is in the museum's west wing.

The cocoon is crammed full
of over 20 million specimens,

including two-and-a-half
million flies

reserved for scientific research.

Erica McAlister is one
of the experts in charge

of this collection,
and flies are her life's obsession.

Everyone who starts off
on flies is like,

"l don't know how
to pronounce that."

My advice with a lot of scientific
names is just go quickly.

You can look at whales
and they're great and they're fun,

but I can go into my garden

and I can see more mayhem
and mischief there

than I will by looking at a whale.

Obviously, I have a bent
for slightly unusual

and entertaining behaviours.

Look, look here.

See those little faces?
Aren't they cute?

You see their little face?

It's not their face.

Obviously, that's their
anal spiracles,

so you're looking at
the backside of a maggot,

which always makes me giggle.

Can you not see the little dot
on top of the end of the pin?

That's obviously a fully-formed
adult fly.

These are commonly called
the no-see-ums,

and there's a specific reason for
that, because they are quite small.

So that obviously is a pig's foot.

In it it's got loads of little
holes where the fleas live.

We get these in humans.

So those romantic walks
on the beach,

not so romantic when you've got
a flea burrowing through your foot.

And then this is a lovely example
of the chicken flea

and they live
in the lids of chickens.

If you look on their eyelid,

you can see little rows
of tiny little fleas.

This is quite amazing. It's got to
be slightly itchy, I guess.

So now I can use these
to horrify you,

which is great
for education reasons.

So we have all
these beautiful models.

Erica's collection also includes
some 90-year-old wax models

that are supersized versions
of the real specimens.

I could show you
my pubic lice in a minute.

That is always a winner.

Everyone has favourites

and the pubic lice are mine
cos, you know, look at them.

So here we have a head lice
and a pubic lice

and I think it's pretty obvious
which one is which.

One lives on your head
and your thorax.

Your hair is slightly different
there to your hair

in your nether region.

Therefore, their claws are shaped
differently to hold on to

different types of hair.

And you can see why they call
it crabs, as well,

because it's definitely got
a crab-like structure to it.

It's brilliant.

They're dying out.

We don't really know why.

It could be deforestation,
but we don't know.

Coming up, the museum welcomes
a new dinosaur to its collection.

I'm super excited to get
this beautiful dinosaur.

It's just going to be spectacular.

And a new discovery about Hope.

I've taken a look at the results
and processed what's come back.

I'm incredibly excited by this.

The Natural History Museum
covers an area

the size of 200 tennis courts

and has five cafes, three shops
and 28 different galleries.

Making sure this huge museum
is ready for the public

is a mammoth task, and it's all down
to duty manager jack Evans.

Eva, can I grab the sales radios?

Have a good day. See you in a bit.

He has just 45 minutes
to get everything ready

before the museum opens for the day.

The museum's a very
glamorous building

but I reassure you that there's not
always glamorous sides to the job.

Jack manages a team of 65
front-of-house staff

who run the 14-acre site.

It always gets to this time,

and it gets a bit more exciting

cos the visitors are on their way.

The top of the stairs,
always knackered.

I think by the end of the day,
we're all kind of like this,

like keeled over.

It's such a physicaljob.

My step count will probably be about
23 to 25,000 steps a day...

...like 12 flights of stairs,

so you've got to be quite athletic,
which I'm not.

Hello, Control. Duty Manager, over.

Just checking in with housekeeping

to see if the building is clean
enough for us to open

and I'm not getting a response.

This is the Duty Manager calling.

Any available housekeeping
supervisor or manager? Over.

It's kind of a bit rude
if they don't answer.

Hi, there. just to double check
that the museum is squeaky clean

and ready for our visitors? Over.

Hello, Control. Are we ready
to open the museum on time?

Thank you. Out.

We are indeed.

Time is ticking for the museum's
major upcoming exhibition,

Fantastic Beasts:
The Wonder of Nature.

Head of Conservation Lorraine
Cornish and her team have to prepare

over 100 items,

including the replica skeleton of
a recently-discovered dinosaur -

Dracorex Hogwartsia.

The original is in America,
where it was discovered in 2004

and is named after
Harry Potter's school.

I'm super excited to get
this beautiful dinosaur.

It's going to be the centrepiece
of our exhibition with the most

amazing name, Dracorex Hogwartsia,

dragon king of the Hogwarts.

It's just going to be spectacular.

You've got wizarding world
and magic and you've got a dinosaur.

What else do you need to start
your exhibition?

The complex skeleton has arrived
in pieces without a manual

and needs assembling.

So Lorraine has called in
dinosaur expert Susie Maidment.

As a dinosaur researcher,
what part are you interested in?

Most dinosaur experts like skulls,
to be honest with you,

because skulls can tell us a lot
about feeding and things like that,

and they're a bit more personal.
They are a bit more personal.

Well, you know, we do have...
Have we got the skull?

...the replica skull here.
Can I have a look?

Yeah, I've got it on here
with all the other bits here. OK.

Can I pick it up? Yeah, yeah.

It's in really good condition,
and it's really robust.

Oh, it's light, OK.
Yeah, and it's really light.

Don't you think
that looks just like a dragon?

It just looks exactly like what you
imagine a dragon looks like.

I know, I know, I know.
It's so cool!

But Lorraine has discovered
a problem with the replica skeleton.

What's happened here, though?
Well, I was hoping

we could put it together today,
so that we could show you.

But unfortunately,
it's travelled across from the US,

and so some of the pieces
were damaged.

The one thing a conservator fears

is undoing that crate
and something is broken.

And in this case, we found pieces
of the dinosaur lying at the bottom.

And so there's a sort of
intake of breath and like,

"OK, let's have a look
and see how much damage we've got."

And so we've got ribs completely
broken off,

whole pieces broken off entirely.

I've got some more pieces
over on the table.

So we will be able to repair it,

but it will take four or five days,
which we hadn't planned for.

We've got to somehow find the time

to now repair
this beautiful dinosaur

so that we can install it.

Richard Sabin has been

looking after the museum's whales
for three decades,

But his love
of the Natural History Museum

stretches back to childhood.

I first remember
walking into this hall

and seeing this blue whale model
as a ten-year-old.

It was the first time
I'd ever been to London,

the first time I'd been
to the Natural History Museum,

and this was the thing
that really blew me away.

Standing in front of this model

makes me remember how excited I was
when I first saw this.

One of the things
that I really wanted to do

when I was ten years old
on that first visit

was take a look at the model
close up.

And of course,
now that I work for the museum,

that's exactly what I can do.

Nobody else - just me.

Richard's childhood visits

would spark his lifelong love
of whales.

As a ten-year-old,
I was all about bones,

I wanted to know about skeletons,
and seeing the skeleton

of the largest animal
that's ever lived on the planet

was just the most...
the most incredible thing,

I had to know more.

I had no idea

that I'd end up working with Hope
so closely

and in so much detail.

And she's really become
the pinnacle of my career so far.

Who knew?
Who knew that was going to happen?

That could never be predicted.

After months of research,
Richard has made a breakthrough

in his investigation into Hope.

He's been able to trace where
Hope travelled during her life,

but then the trail goes cold.

It appears that,
in the last years of her life,

she suddenly stopped migrating.

Richard has an idea of why this was,

and he's just received
an extraordinary set of results

that confirm his suspicions.

I've taken a look at the results
and processed what's come back,

and what we can see very clearly -

very, very clearly,
and I'm incredibly excited by this -

is that we have evidence

that Hope had been pregnant,
full term.

These results show
that Hope was pregnant

during the last years of her life.

With this new information,

Richard can now pinpoint
exactly when she gave birth.

The graph that I've got here

is the data that's come back
from the analysis.

And smack in the middle of the graph

is this huge spike in progesterone,
the pregnancy hormone.

So we have a birth date
for Hope's calf

of February 1890
based on these data.

This is really quite remarkable.

And the really wonderful thing
for me is that...

...if her calf
lived its full lifespan,

that means it would have been
swimming around in our waters

around about 1970 or so.

If that calf in turn
had had offspring,

maybe, maybe, just maybe,

Hope's grandchildren are swimming
around still in the oceans today,

following
that same migration route.

But the research has also revealed
a darker side of Hope's story.

Alongside the pregnancy hormone, the
progesterone,

we've also analysed the levels

of a stress hormone
called corticosterone.

Now, this stress hormone
is actually elevated

in the period leading up to

and the period including
Hope's pregnancy.

What we have to remember

is that Hope was living at a time of
increased commercial whaling,

a time when blue whales

were taken right to the very edge
of extinction.

There was a massive intensification
in hunting of blue whales,

because they were
so commercially desirable.

And Hope was living through
the peak of whaling.

She probably would have been
much more vulnerable

as a pregnant female,

and it's a terrible thing to think

that she was about to give birth

at a time when things were looking
so bleak for her species.

Even though whaling was
approaching its height,

Hope escaped being slaughtered
and gave birth.

But records show that, a year later,
she became stranded

and died on a sandbank

as she journeyed past
Wexford Harbour on the Irish coast.

Richard still has an important
question that needs answering.

It's one of the mysteries which is
still pretty much an open question,

is why Hope died, why she...beached
in Wexford Harbour.

I really need to do
a bit more thinking

about what I still believe to be
the last open question,

which is...why did she beach?

How did she manage to strand,
such a powerful animal?

Maybe these data can give me
a little bit of insight.

Coming up - the museum's new
dinosaur refuses to take shape.

This is like a giant Meccano set

that's full of very fragile pieces
that you're trying to put together.

And Hope's last secret.

There's a mystery still to be
addressed, the final mystery.

The deadline is looming

for the Natural History Museum's
upcoming exhibition.

With a broken replica dinosaur
on her hands,

head of conservation
Lorraine Cornish

is having to work round the clock
to assemble its complex skeleton.

The clock is ticking,
we have a schedule planned,

and now this is an additional piece
of work that we've got to do.

So any bits of spare time
that we thought we had

we don't have any more,
and we're doing this.

This whole ribcage section here

had actually broken
along quite a few of those lines.

So what I'm doing is
just that bit of in-painting

so you cannot see
where that break happened.

This has taken up
quite a lot of time,

and I'm going to nickname it

a little bit of a diva dinosaur,
to be honest,

in terms of the attention
it's demanding from us.

But, you know, it's worth it,
absolutely worth it.

With the repairs complete,

Lorraine can finally try to assemble
the dracorex skeleton.

This is like a giant Meccano set

that's full of very fragile pieces
that you're trying to put together.

So you're literally building
a dinosaur.

It's getting longer.

Yeah, it's nice and long now,
isn't it?

You feel like you're gradually
bringing it to life

as you put each piece on.

It's just like an enormous jigsaw
puzzle but quite a challenging one.

Jigsaw puzzles usually
behave a little bit better

than this dinosaur is.

Dino expert Susie Maidment

is joining Lorraine
for its crowning moment.

Hi, Lorraine!
Hi, Susie, how are you?

This looks good, much better
than last time I saw it!

So much better, isn't it?

You've just caught me pinning
the tail on the dinosaur, literally!

This is the last bit of tail,
so I've got you down here

because there's one more piece
to put on, Susie.

The skull!

So can I do the honours, Lorraine?
You can, Susie.

I've saved the best till last
for you. How exciting.

It's all quite simple.
Yeah? That's it.

Then put him up a little bit more...
Like that? Yes, exactly.

There we go. Yeah.

There he goes. Right.
Are we letting go? Yeah.

Hey... There he is.

There he is!

Look at that! Oh, handsome!

This specimen looks fantastic.

I can't believe how different
it looks from when I saw it.

I think it's going to be
the star of the show,

as it should be as a dinosaur.

So you've got Harry Potter,
Wizarding World, dinosaurs, dragons.

The whole mix is there, isn't it?

The public are going to
absolutely love this specimen.

It's been a busy day for duty
manager jack Evans and his team,

who are just getting ready
to close up.

Attention, all front-of-house
radio holders.

This is the duty manager.

The museum is now
closed to the public.

Please can you start clearing
the galleries wherever you are?

Thank you. Out.

Gearing up now for closing.

I'm just going to
sweep the galleries

to make sure that
there's no-one hiding

in the kind of strange
hiding places in here.

You never know...
what you might find.

It's kind of nice, actually,

to walk through
when there's no-one here,

even though it's a bit creepy
in some areas.

It's nice, you can kind of have some
one-to-one time with a donkey.

This is probably a good spot
to edge people on to the doors.

We obviously don't want to
force people out the doors,

but we've kind of got this
gentle lean-in

and kind of graciously nudge.

Richard Sabin's
18-month investigation

into Hope the whale's life story
is coming to an end.

He's plotted her route
across the globe

and discovered that,
in the last years of her life,

she gave birth to a calf.

But there's one question
that still needs answering.

What caused this giant blue whale
to beach

on a sandbank in Wexford Harbour
on the Irish coast?

There's a mystery
still to be addressed,

and it's the final mystery.

It's the mystery of why she died,
how she died.

What were the circumstances?

Richard has finally pieced together
the story of Hope's last hours.

It's my feeling that it's probably
down to two main factors,

the first one being she would have
been weakened by the pregnancy

and by feeding that calf
for all those months,

investing all her energy
in keeping her calf alive.

There's another factor.

We know from records that,
in the days before she appeared,

on the south-east coast of Ireland,

there were terrible storms
in the area.

And I have a dreadful feeling

that Hope may have been
caught by those storms,

that she may have been pulled into

the incredibly tidal waters
of Wexford Harbour,

into the shallows,

and didn't have the strength
to break free,

had no way to get herself
out of that predicament.

Hope died on the morning
of 25th March 1891.

And remarkably Richard has uncovered
a photograph in an Irish museum

that matches the exact date and
location of where Hope was found.

It shows the blue whale
in her final moments.

I've got a photograph here
that shows Hope

lying on a sandbank
in shallow water

on her right-hand side,

with four men
standing on top of her body,

and she's being released,
we believe, from her misery

by one of the men
who made a harpoon,

a home-made harpoon, and...

...and plunged into her body to...

...to, um...release her.

It really does have quite an impact
and, you know, just...

It does bring her to life, really,
to have this information.

Ultimately, when I stop
and think about it,

it's...it's quite overpowering,
it's quite overwhelming.

Richard has solved
the 50-year-old mystery about Hope.

And soon,
everyone who comes to the museum

can discover more about her story.

Even though this is
an incredibly sad story,

there is a...
a silver lining to all this.

People will get to know this story,

and I really think
it will surprise and inspire them.

We've created an incredibly
powerful message of hope,

and Hope's story is an example

of what the Natural History Museum
is all about -

using our collections to
inspire people, through science,

to look after, protect
and conserve the natural world.

Next time...

...a new dinosaur discovery...

It slightly blows your mind,
doesn't it?

...gruesome secrets
from our prehistoric ancestors...

So these teeth marks must be
from a human.

This is definitely
cannibalistic behaviour.

...and the most famous dinosaur
of all time.

Dippymania has taken over.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media