Puppet lesson a scream

It's the puppet show that bites, as Como Primary School student Sebastian Aven discovered yesterday when his head disappeared into the jaws of an Australovenator - a carnivorous, 500kg dinosaur.

Fortunately, the giant spat the nine-year-old out to the great delight of his enthralled classmates.

The Australovenator is among the life-sized puppets in Erth's Dinosaur Petting Zoo at the WA Museum which gives children a screaming and squirming lesson.

Sebastian and Mandurah Baptist College student Molly Stevenson, 6, were in the lucky few given a up-close encounter and both gave it an awesome thumbs up.

Museum curator of palaeontology Mikael Siversson said this year's show had an all-Australian line-up of dinosaurs and would be at the museum until July 22.