A staff member poses next to the world's most complete Stegosaurus skeleton at the Natural History Museum in London on December 3, 2014

A rare dinosaur skeleton goes on display at London's Natural History museum on Thursday—the first to be exhibited there in a century.

The near-complete fossilised remains of a Stegosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur, were bought by the museum in the United States last year.

The 5.6-metre (18-foot) long skeleton is made up of some 300 bones and will be displayed close to one of the museum's entrances.

"Complete dinosaur specimens are really rare and this one is almost complete," said Paul Barrett, a dinosaur specialist at the museum.

It is 150 million years old and was found on the grounds of a ranch in Wyoming in 2003 and it was brought to London in December 2013.

The London museum said that unlike the more widely known Tyrannosaurus Rex, very few Stegosaurus remains have been found.

"It's only known from a handful of skeletons in other museums that aren't nearly as complete as this one," Barrett said.

The first specimen of the species was found in the United States in 1877 by the US paleontologist Charles Marsh.

Explore further T. rex gets new home in Smithsonian dinosaur hall

© 2014 AFP