A first: think have just been party to a sentiment never uttered before in history of man OR dinosaur...

Am currently doing a bit of research for a forthcoming exhibition at the Natural History Museum Age of Dinosaurs.  (Wonderful work - am so enjoying tackling the timescales, and the thought that humans have hardly made an appearance compared to the huge, bizarre and exotic creatures that ruled the planet for 160 million years.)

...well while on the phone to Mum I mention that tomorrow I have to go and photograph some coprolites (fossilised dinosaur poo)...she obviously drifts off a bit and says in an alarmed tone:  no, no I would really like you to have highlights not copperlights!  What Mum?

(I am sure the worlds of palaeontology and hair-dressing rarely, if ever, collide!)

Here is a coprolite taken from the NHM picture library - a beautiful spiral one from a coelacanth, the flesh-finned fish that was thought to have died out at the mass extinction 65 million years ago...only to appear in 1938 at a fish market in South Africa.  The exotic looking fish was 1.5m long Latimeria - a living fossil.  The wonders of nature...

Coelacanth coprolite - a 'preview' image from NHM picture library