PICK OF TODAY’S TV

INTO DINOSAUR VALLEY WITH DAN SNOW, 9PM, CH5

DIPPY the Diplodocus, or a plaster replica of his skeleton, has welcomed visitors to London’s Natural History Museum since 1905 and has recently been on a UK tour. For this one-off, Dan Snow (pictured) retraces Dippy’s steps all the way back to his original stamping ground in the U.S. America’s Wild West was the scene of a bone gold rush, complete with bitter rivalries, as fossil hunters unearthed a rich seam of millennia-old finds. Dan treks across some of America’s most remote and tough terrain, from Wyoming to Utah and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, to learn about the men who made these incredible discoveries, focusing on the intense rivalry of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, who between them identified more than 130 species of dinosaur. Dan also joins present-day palaeontologists to find out how the region came to be such a hotspot for dinosaur remains, before his fascinating journey finally takes him to the spot where the original Dippy was found — and where he makes a discovery all of his own . . .