Dinosaurs inhabited the whole world - and one very different in many ways from the world we know today. Underlining this is the fact that dinosaurs have ben found in Antarctica. Important finds of duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaur) on Vega Island were unearthed last year - the first time this dinosaur had been found outside the American continent.

China.

Are our birds descended from dinosaurs? Scientists have long believed this. What they needed was good evidence, preferably in the form of dinosaurs with some kind of feathers. Last year, the momentous discovery was made - fossil dinosaurs with feathers were found in North East China.

China

The dinosaur with the longest name - micropachycephalosaurus - was found in China. Interestingly, it is one of the smallest of all dinosaurs - half a metre tall and half a metre long.

Isle of Wight.

Underlining the fact that new dinosaur species are being discovered all the time, a previously unknown twelve foot meat eater was found last year on the Isle of Wight, and is attracting much international attention. Still with no name, it is gradually being removed from very hard rock and will eventually be exhibited in the Geology museum in Sandown.

Argentina.

A huge dinosaur - the largest ever discovered - was recently found here and called “Argentinosaurus”. Its size is staggering. Only a few bones have been found so far, including vertebrae each of which are five feet across.

From this, its total weight is estimated at a hundred tons.

Russia - the Urals.

Many important discoveries, particularly of dinosaur-like flying reptiles.

The smallest are the size of a sparrow, the largest are as big as a modern glider. Recent finds show them to have been covered in fur, and the Russians call them “hairy devils”.

The Gobi Desert.

This area is very rich in dinosaur remains. This is because it is arid, with very little plant cover, and also wind blown - fossil skeletons are constantly being exposed by wind erosion.

Africa.

A huge dinosaur - brachiosaurus - was found in Tanzania, before the First World War, when it was German East Africa. It was dug out and shipped back to Germany, and is still exhibited in the Humboldt Museum there,as the biggest mounted dinosaur in the world.

after the first wodl war became tanganyika, uganda North Africa.

In the Thirties bones of a giant meat eating dinosaur were found here.

During World War Two, all specimens, which were in Germany museums, were destroyed by British bombing. In the last few years this dinosaur has been rediscovered by the American palaeontologist Paul Sereno, who named it carcharodontosaurus. It is bigger than Tyrannosaurus Rex, but its brain is half the size.

North America As the arid “badlands” of the American West opened up, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, huge numbers of dinosaur fossils began to be found. Knowledge of dinosaurs took a great leap forward. Much of this story is told at the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, where it is possible to see dinosaur fossils in the setting where they are found.

Australia.

Dinosaur fossils and footprints have been found in many areas, including one which is now called “Dinosaur Cove” in the State of Victoria.

One of the most interesting finds is at Lark Quarry Environmental Park, Western Queensland, where a set of dinosaur footprints tell the story of a stampede - small dinosaurs chsed by a big predator.

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The Museum of Geology, Sandown, Isle of Wight. (01983 404344) Fossils, including some picked up on the beach by visitors. There is also a nearby “Dinosaur Farm” where visitors can see dinosaurs being reconstructed from fossil remains, and talk to the experts.

The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. (0141 330 4221) “The Time Capsule Dinosaur Eggs” - a clutch of eggs. Work is still going on to investigate them and their contents.