TELEVISION legend Sir David Attenborough indulged himself in his childhood fascination with dinosaurs on a trip to the ancient city of York.

The 91-year-old naturalist and television presenter formally opened the major new blockbuster exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, Jurassic World, and described what he had seen as “thrilling”.

Sir David took a guided tour of the spectacular show before meeting local schoolchildren, and spoke enthusiastically about the new technology which is giving visitors an immersive experience.

Pupils from a local school used a virtual reality device to feed branches to a sauropod, while an “augmented reality” iPad showed them how huge fossilised sea dragons, found on the Yorkshire Coast in the 19th-century, would have looked when swimming around in their day.

Sir David, who presented the most watched programme of last year, Blue Planet 2, said: “I have been interested in palaeontology and the world of dinosaurs and sea dragons since I was a child.

“It remains a subject which still fascinates and excites me to this day.”

He added: “It’s an excellent museum with a splendid display, marvellous objects and some very surprising ones.

“The huge sea reptiles are as impressive as any I have seen anywhere, and you’ve got five of them - which seems a bit greedy.

“And like all good regional museums, it illuminates the area in which the citizens of this great city live. It should be one of the great treasures of their municipal life.”.”

The exhibition takes visitors on an epic journey back through 150 million years of Yorkshire to discover lost giants and the changing worlds they inhabited.

Visitors can see virtual dinosaurs roaming across real dinosaur footprints and be immersed in deep oceans where some of the museum’s famous fossilised sea dragons are brought to life.

They can also see baby ichthyosaurs “swim” off from a rare fossil of embryonic creatures and marvel at the size and ferocity of the teeth and claws of Yorkshire’s top Jurassic predator – the megalosaur.

Also at the launch was a rising star of the film industry, 25-year-old Umar Hussain, currently visual effects line producer on the upcoming film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. He has worked on some of the biggest films of recent years, including Star Wars: The Last Jedi.