If you do one thing this month … go fossil hunting

Jurassic World has rekindled our passion for the prehistoric, so this summer head to the beach in search of ammonites, belemnites - and maybe a sauropod or two

What is it about dinosaurs? They never really go out of fashion, but with Jurassic World stomping across multiplex screens for the past few weeks and scientists at National Geographic staging a televised "T rex autopsy" (fake, obviously), there's no escaping them this summer. Maybe now's the time to discover your inner palaeontologist and try fossil hunting. There are plenty of sites across the UK from beaches to quarry beds where you can give it a go, but some more popular spots are prone to falling rocks and are dangerous at high tide, so a little bit of research is a good idea. Go to ukfossils.co.uk for advice on the safest sites to visit.

Charmouth on Dorset's Jurassic Coast is ideal for first-timers, says palaeontologist Simon Penn, as it's quite safe and set up for holidaymakers who want to amble along and do the odd bit of fossil spotting. "At that end of the coast, you're likely to find ammonites and belemnites that are around 190 million years old," he says. (If you're heading to Camp Bestival at end of July, keep an eye out for Jurassic CSI, which Penn helped to set up - mocked-up crime scenes where the culprit is one of six possible dino-villains.)