By Tanya Lewis
What may be the most ancient dinosaur ever found — or at least a very close relative to the oldest currently known examples — could push the appearance of the awesome beasts back to 243 million years ago.
Paleontologist Rex Parrington of the University of Cambridge in England discovered the fossil in the early 1930s, preserved in a rock formation known as the Manda Beds in Tanzania’s Ruhuhu Valley. Now, a team of scientists has taken a fresh look at Nyasasaurus parringtoni. It lived during the Anisian age of the Middle Triassic period, about 10 million to 15 million years earlier than the oldest confirmed dinosaurs. The finding suggests dinosaurs evolved and diversified over a longer time frame than scientists thought, the team reports online December 4 in Biology Letters.
So far only fragments of the creature’s backbone and upper arm bone have been found, but these bear telltale features of dinosaurs, such as rapid bone growth. More fragments are needed to determine whether the fossil is in fact the oldest dinosaur or a member of the nearest sister group.