According to National Geographic, the Isle of Wight is one of the top seven dinosaur sites in the world, along with the likes of China, Hell Creek, USA and Ukhaa Tolgod in Mongolia. The Island was literally teeming with dinosaurs 130 million years ago and a total of 29 species are known to have lived there. Amongst them was the Iguanodon, a plant eating dinosaur and the five metre long Polacanthus along with the tallest, longest and heaviest animal to have ever walked on earth, the Long Necked Sauropods.

The island was still attached to mainland Britain when these animals lived there, but Britain was in turn connected to continental Europe. It was part of a huge flood plain dotted with ponds and criss crossed rivers. The summers were hot and were followed by warm, wet winters which would turn to floods and transform the landscape into lush, fertile ground. The herbivore dinosaurs would graze on the ferns, conifers and palms.

The Isle of Wight has perfect conditions for preserving and finding dinosaur remains because the land they inhabited was largely made up of Wealden rock which is particularly rich and diverse. Earth movements and coastal corrosion have exposed fossils beneath the seabed and further remains in the islands cliff.

Visitors to Dinosaur Isle Museum on the Island are in for a particular treat as researchers have begun the painstaking process of assembling an almost complete 30ft (9m) Iguanodon dinosaur. Work on the skeleton, which is known as Big Iggy is due to take at least a year, whilst the uncovering of the remains have taken several years by fossil hunter Nick Chase who has kindly donated it to the Sandown Museum.
Mr Chase said "Once I realised there was something significant here, it was a matter of going down to the site basically, every day at least once a day, as the sea washed away the rockfall, more and more bits would be uncovered all the time". He went on to say '"It is not uncommon to find bits and pieces of dinosaur skeletons along this coast but to find a substantial portion of one is much rarer."

This article was written by Tom Sangers on behalf of Luccombe Manor who offer Cheap break Isle of Wight in their Hotel Shanklin