Yabba dabba do!

palaeontologist Susannah Stone shows off Tiny at Spindles

TINY the dinosaur delighted youngsters when she took up residence in Spindles shopping centre on Saturday.

Children crowded round her pen, eager to stroke her and feed her some of the ferns to which she is particularly partial.

Palaeontologist Susannah Stone explained how dinosaurs like Tiny once ruled the earth and answered a barrage of questions.

“Tiny” was an animatronic model of a four-year-old stegosaurus, standing 6-7ft tall and so lifelike that many of the youngsters found it hard to believe she wasn’t real.

The creature pottered around her pen, inquisitively sniffed children munched on vegetation handed out by eager young hands.

Emily Smyth (5) was one of the lucky youngsters chosen to pull on a dinosaur costume and feed Tiny once the beast realised it had nothing to fear.

She said: “I liked her, she felt soft when I stroked her.”

Palaeontologist Susannah used Tiny as a draw to share her knowledge of natural history.

She said: “The children are amazing. They are very impressive and ask complex questions.

Susannah works for LosKaos, a company of street-theatre acts, performers and creature makers, and made the trip to Oldham with Tiny from their Forest of Dean base.

She said: “We were asked to come by the shopping centre and I hope they will invite us back again with our polar bear at Christmas!”