Time Ark/Kents Cavern

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Starting with the Devonian period, with steamy swamps and arid deserts, coral seas and frozen waters, this gallery offers the opportunity to take a trip through time and envisage Devon over 400 million years ago, seeing it as it evolved through the ages.

The Time Ark offers visitors an amazing selection of some of the highlights of the story of the planet we all inhabit and the moments when earth shattering changes took place, such as the Jurassic period and the ice age.

There are intricate fossils and volcanic rocks, the remains of many animals which once roamed the frozen wastes of Torquay, such as the cave bear and the wholly rhino followed by the big cats which commanded the domain between glaciations. For the brave visitor there is the chance to look into the hyenas den!

From past to present the gallery now enters the modern world with creatures from our present environments, from garden sheds to estuaries and from beaches to woodland. Many of the local species are shown in their natural settings.

There are plenty of hands on exhibits in the Time Ark Gallery, including elephant tusks and a lion skin, fossils to handle and identify and an area for taking rubbings of some of the objects displayed in the gallery.