It’s a debate that has raged for about 150 years – when did the
first dinosaurs appear? This rather ordinary looking reptile – a
3m (10ft) long plant-eater – may force us to rip up the
scientific textbooks. Nyasasaurus parringtoni is believed to
have lived 243million years ago – about 15million years before
the ancient reptiles were thought to burst on to the scene.
Dating of its fossils have now helped researchers extend the
evolution of dinosaurs back to the mid-Triassic – a relatively
short time after the end of a catastrophic mass extinction that
wiped out most of the planet’s species. Dr Sterling Nesbitt, of
the University of Washington, said: ‘If the newly named
Nyasasaurus parringtoni is not the earliest dinosaur, then it is
the closest relative found so far.’ The species would probably
have stood upright and lived by Lake Nyasa in what is now
Tanzania. Scientists studied upper arm and vertebrae remains
that were discovered in the 1930s and kept at the Natural
History Museum in London.