The first dinosaur appeared around 228 million years ago

For the next 165 million years they ruled our planet

Dinosaurs romaed the Earth for 820 times longer than modern humans have existed

During the time of the first dinosaurs, there was just one landmass - a supercontinent called Pangaea

Over millions of years, Pangaea broke up into separate continents to form the world we know today

Dinosaurs lived between 228 and 65 million years ago, during the Mesozoic era

The period dinosaur's lived in, is sometimes called the age of the reptiles

More than 700 different types of dinosaurs have been discovered so far

Dinosaurs were land animals

The prehistoric skies and seas were filled with reptiles but they were not dinosaurs

The word 'dinosaur' means 'terrible lizard' but dinosaurs weren't actually lizards

Dinosaurs were a type of land reptile

Unlike most modern-day lizards and crocodiles, a dinosaur's legs were set directly under its body rather than sticking out from the sides

All dinosaurs had four limbs, though some walked on four legs and others on two

Although dinosaurs were land animals, some would wade through water

Dinosaurs laid eggs

Some dinosaurs, such as Compsognathus, were as small as a chicken

Others such as Amphicoelius, were longer than four buses lined up end to end

Large dinosaurs had powerful leg muscles to support their enormous weight

Dinosaurs were either lizard-hipped (saurischians) or bird-hipped (ornithischians)

Many dinosaurs walked on their toes

Dinosaurs were slightly pigeon-toed and walked with their toes pointed inwards

Dinosaurs that walked on two legs could move faster than those who walked on four

Dinosaurs might have used their tails for balance. Fossilised dinosaur tracks tell us that dinosaurs did not drag their trails behind them, but held them above the ground

The first dinosaur appeared during the Triassic Period, which lasted 50.6 million years

There was not a wide range of dinosaurs during the Triassic Period

The first dinosaurs were smaller than those that would develop later

Dinosaurs such as Zupaysaurus, Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus lived at this time

Eoraptor was only about 1 m tall

Melanorosaurus was the largest Triassic dinosaur and was about 11m long

It's long neck allowed it to reach leaves high up in the trees

Dinosaurs at this time lived alongside many other animals, including reptiles and ginat insects

Prehistoric dragonflies could be as large as modern-day birds

Many of the animals and dinosaurs that lived during the Triassic Period were wiped out in a mass extinction

The dinosaurs that survived evolved into different kinds of dinosaurs during the jurassic period that followed

The jurassic period lasted 56 million years

It began 201 million years ago and ended 145 million years ago

Dinosaurs were MUCH larger during the jurassic period

Huge plant-eating dinosaurs, known as sauropods appeared during this time

Plants spread over large areas of the land, providing food for plant-eaters, which in turn provided food for new meat-eating dinos

During the jurassic period, many different types of dinosaurs existed, including Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus, Allosaurus and Ankylosaurus

Having huge bodies meant that dinosaurs had to spend a lot of time eating

Allosaurus was a jurassic predator that fed on stegosaurus and sauropods

Allosaurus was the largest predator during the jurassic

Allosaurus was only about half the length of Apatosaurus

To bring down larger plant-eating dinosaurs, Allosaurus may have hunted in packs

Stegosaurus used the spikes at the end of its tail to strike back at attackers

Diplodocus could crack its long tail like a whip to scare off predators

The tip of its tail could reach a speed of 1,300km/h

A Diplodocus egg was as large as a football