10 Year Old Boy Outwits Top London Institution
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Who would win in a battle of dinosaur knowledge: London’s Natural History Museum or a 10-year-old dinosaur enthusiast? Let’s just say the winner wasn’t the huge and intellectually respected scientific institution, but schoolboy Charlie from Essex. On the 21st of July, Charlie was on an overnight stay at the Museum when he spotted a sign that wasn’t quite right. The Museum had mistakenly put a picture of a Protoceratops on a sign that was supposed to show an Oviraptor- two very different dinosaurs.
Protoceratops:
Oviraptor:
As you can see from the diagram that was shown in the museum, the outline is very clearly of the wrong dinosaur.
When Charlie told his parents about the mistake, they doubted him at first. His mother told the BBC, “When he told us, we said, ‘OK, we know you’re good, but this is the Natural History Museum'”.
She also explained when Charlie’s interest in dinosaurs began, “He’s loved paleontology since he was very young and started reading encyclopedias when he was about three. Charlie has Asperger’s Syndrome and as part of that, when he likes a subject he will try and find out everything about it.”
Luckily, no paleontologists were fired and the museum changed the sign, not before noting how impressed they were with Charlie’s extensive knowledge of the subject.