Fossil find could be oldest dino of all Start of reign
Fossilised bones unearthed by a British palaeontologist in
colonial Tanzania in the 1930s may be those of the oldest
dinosaur ever found, say researchers. The bones are either of
the earliest dinosaur or of the closest relative of dinosaurs
discovered to date, they report in the journal Biology Letters.
A denizen of the Middle Triassic around 243 million years ago,
the creature predates all previous dinosaur finds by 10 to 15
million years, the scientists say. The specimen also points to
the possible birthplace of these enigmatic species in a mega-
continent called Pangaea, they add. Dubbed Nyasasaurus, the
putative dino was about 80 centimetres high, up to three metres
in length and had a tail up to 1.5 metres long, according to
their study. It probably weighed between 20 and 60 kilograms.
"If the newly-named Nyasasaurus parringtoni is not the earliest
dinosaur, then it is the closest relative found so far," says
Sterling Nesbitt of the University of Wash