It was another ‘huge’ moment for The Box as its giant woolly mammoth was revealed for the first time.
The life-sized, as yet un-named female was inspired by a mammoth tooth in The Box’s collections, discovered at Yealm Bridge Cavern on the nearby Kitley Estate. Fossils show that woolly mammoths were roaming Plymouth 35,000 years ago, alongside bears, cave lions, hyenas and woolly rhinos.
The mammoth and tooth will be displayed together in The Box’s new natural history gallery, along with 3,000 other specimens including insects, taxidermy, minerals and skeletons.
The mammoth has been built by Blue Rhino Studio, based in Minnesota, USA. The company specialises in interpretive design and artistic fabrication for visitor centres and museums around the world. Like the majority of all large-scale sculptures created at Blue Rhino, the fabrication of the mammoth began with the production of a detailed clay model that captured her mass, pose, gesture and scale. This painstaking process enabled the team to scrutinise and make adjustments to the design before she was sculpted at full-scale. She’s been created from fire retardant architectural foam and sealed with a fibreglass resin.
One of the most challenging aspects was replicating her fur. Blue Rhino had to carefully consider its colour, texture and direction and then applied it by hand from the feet up to create an amazingly realistic finish. The mammoth was then disassembled into three sections and prepped for shipping. She arrived in Southampton docks earlier this month and was then carefully transported to her new home in Plymouth.
Tim Quady, Owner of Blue Rhino Studio, said: “Creating a large-scale beast like this is always a challenge but we thrive on pushing ourselves in new directions and love working on these sort of projects. We’re really pleased that she arrived safely after her long journey from Minnesota and hope The Box’s visitors enjoy seeing her as much as we’ve enjoyed creating her.”
Find out more on The Box website.