Dinosaur's oldest relative found

Asilisaurus kongwe was a very close relative of the dinosaurs Scientists have discovered a dinosaur-like creature 10 million years older than the earliest known dinosaurs.   Asilisaurus kongwe is a newly discovered herbivore that lived during the middle Triassic period - about 245 million years ago.   The scientists say that its age suggests that dinosaurs were also on the Earth earlier than previously thought.   They described their findings in the journal Nature.   The study was led by Dr Sterling Nesbitt from the University of Texas at Austin in the US.   He said: "This new evidence suggests that [dinosaurs] were really only one of several large and distinct groups of animals that exploded in diversity in the Triassic period, including silesaurs [like this one], pterosaurs, and several groups of crocodilian relatives." Asilisaurus stood up to 1m tall and walked on all fours Full story here

Posted via email from Garth's posterous