Dinosaur jumper joy - 23rd December 2022

In London even the dinosaurs are getting festive. At the city's famous Natural History Museum, an animatronic T-Rex dinosaur has been kitted out ready for Christmas.

T-Rex's jumper is made from recycled materials and has extra short sleeves to accommodate his short arms, and the body of the jumper has zips, so museum staff can help him get dressed. The pattern on his cosy apparel features green dinosaurs bedecked in Santa hats just like T-Rex himself.

But why a dinosaur jumper for Christmas? Sam Barnes is the retail commercial manager for the museum.

Sam Barnes: "It is a big British thing. There is a national Christmas jumper day that happens in December, which is a charity day, so yeah I think it is a uniquely British thing. And for us, it's something we want to kind of take advantage of and we do think our stance is a bit different having a little Christmas dino on your jumper this year."

Human size versions of the jumper are available in the museum's shop along with socks, scarves and hats all featuring cute versions of these prehistoric giants. But there is a serious side to the sale of this winter clothing too.

Sam Barnes: "For us, everything we do here in the shop, all of our profits go back to supporting all of the vital scientific research and looking after all the collections here in the museum. So for us, Christmas is a really peak time for that and we have lots of visitors coming in and we want to make sure we're giving them something fun and something interesting and also it's an upcycled and recycled yarn product as well."

The Natural History Museum is a respected research institution publishing more than 700 scientific papers annually with collaborators from around the world. So the hope is that the sale of T-Rex's dashing attire will help in further research about his fellow dinosaurs.

But with the design changing every year, who gets to feature on the Christmas clothing next year is a matter of debate amongst the museum's exhibits.