The Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester is unique - it is Britain's only museum solely devoted to dinosaurs and their fascinating world.

Actual fossils, skeletons, and life-size dinosaur reconstructions combine with audio-visual, hands-on, computer and CD-Rom displays to excite, enthral, and entertain the visitor. The Dinosaur Museum has been extensively featured on television and has become nationally famous for its innovative, adventurous and friendly approach. It was recently voted Dorset's family attraction of the year.

Dinosaurs ruled the land for some 140 million years, finally becoming extinct 65 million years ago. Our fascination with dinosaurs started in the 1820s when the first true discoveries of dinosaur bones were made in England. Then in 1841 Sir Richard Owen invented the word "dinosauria" - meaning "terrible lizard"' - to describe this group of prehistoric monsters. Dinosaur fever was created and over 150 years later people's imaginations are still being excited by these prehistoric creatures. This sense of "dinomania" is reflected in The Dinosaur Museum.

The visitor immediately encounters a complete skeleton of the famous meat-eating dinosaur Megalosaurus, with its sickle-shaped claws and teeth, mounted over a set of footprints made by that dinosaur. Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named 175 years ago, by the Rev William Buckland. This skeleton vividly contrasts with the skeleton of the small fleet-tooted vegetarian dinosaur Hypsilophodon. A Jurassic Scene display is being added to the museum this year featuring an actual size reconstruction of a Megalosaurus attacking a Scelidosaurus - something that could well have taken place in prehistoric Dorset.

Among the most dramatic of the displays are the awe-inspiring life-size dinosaur reconstructions.There are two Tyrannosaurus Rex - the largest meat-eating land animal ever; a Stegosaurus with its strangely shaped ridge of plates along its back; a Corythosaurus, one of the duckbilled dinosaurs and affectionately known as Dina by her many fans; and outside, Triceratops dominates the museum's courtyard. They beg to be touched by little hands - and that's encouraged, as is the handling of some of the fossils.

There are many things to touch and do at the museum, such as the "feely" box where you can find out what a dinosaur really felt like - if you dare! The colour box allows you to experiment with various colour combinations to see what colour a dinosaur might have been - no-one really knows as colour doesn't fossilise. Computerised displays allow you to compare yourself to a dinosaur, and investigate the many types of dinosaur that existed. The Dinosaur Museum has twice been voted one of Britain's top ten hands-on museums.

Evolution is a strange concept. What would have happened had the dinosaurs not become extinct The Dinosaur Museum has two possible and very different answers, proposed by experts, as to what dinosaurs would have looked like today had they continued to evolve. Dinosaurid - made famous by Blue Peter - is an upright rather alien looking creature, and Crackbreak is a tree-living dinosaur with elements of the spider monkey and hornbill in it. They have to be seen to be believed!

Three dimensional displays and exhibits are complemented by a wealth of informative graphical and pictorial material making the museum a first class interpretive centre. Displays are in general thematic in approach and stratified vertically with simple facts low down and more in-depth information higher up. The Dinosaur Museum is regularly featured on television appearing in documentaries, children's and entertainment programmes.

The museum opened in June 1984. It received great acclaim from educationalists, museum curators and the public and went on to be nominated for the European Museum of the Year award in 1986. As part of The Dinosaur Museum's fifteenth birthday celebrations, a whole new Dinosaur Discovery Gallery has been opened.

This is filled with all sorts of new hands-on displays such as magnetic dinosaur skeletons to reconstruct, and dinosaur feelies to feel the difference between the teeth of vegetarian and carnivorous dinosaurs. Feel A Fossil allows the visitor to see if they can identify fossils many millions of years old purely by touch. Discover the various sounds that dinosaurs may have made, and generate the amount of calories needed to run different dinosaur brains. With the aid of the Walkasaurus visitors can even walk like a dinosaur! There are electronic discovery pens and CD-Rom displays which aid discovery of more about these fascinating creatures.

Another anniversary this year is the bicentenary of Mary Anning's birth. She lived and collected fossils in Dorset and became nationally famous at an early age for the spectacular fossilised marine reptile skeletons she found. Her remarkable life is celebrated in a special new gallery called the Mary Anning Room of Time. This explores the vast length of time over which the Earth has evolved in relation to the different life-forms that are represented in the fossil record. The visitor is taken on a journey from the earliest trilobites through the time of the dinosaurs to the time of mammals until finally early humans evolve.

The Dinosaur Museum is excellent fun for all ages. There are free funsheets for all children to help them make the most of their visit.

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