Scientists have found looked like an ancient relative of the dinosaurs
Looked like one of the oldest relatives of the dinosaurs? Scientists have found that it was similar to crocodiles and alligators.
Previously, some paleontologists have suggested that the ancient cousins of dinosaurs walked on two legs and were similar to known dinosaurs, only in miniature. However, to confirm these assumptions was difficult, as so ancient fossilized remains of animals cannot meet.
However, according to a new study published in the journal Nature, the ancestors of dinosaurs walked on four legs like crocodiles.
The remains of a carnivorous ancestor of the dinosaurs with a length of 2-3 meters was found in southern Tanzania in 2015. This animal lived on the earth about 245 million years ago, during the Triassic period of the Mesozoic era, that is before the date from the earliest known scientists to the remains of dinosaurs.
“This is a small animal that we called teletracer (Teleocrater). Weight it was about an ordinary dog,” says one of the authors of the new study, Professor Paul Barrett of London’s natural history Museum.
“This creature looked like a slightly more advanced version of the Komodo dragon, perhaps crossed with someone else. That is, it was a little animal, and not a huge crocodile, covered with armor”, — said Barrett in an interview with Bi-bi-si.
Teleocrater rhadinus appeared soon after the huge group of animals known as archosaurs are divided into two subspecies: the result has led to the emergence of dinosaurs (and later birds), and the other to the emergence of today’s alligators and crocodiles.
Anatomy of teletrader combines the features of the last ancestor of this total group, for example, the ankle joint of the animal is typical for crocodiles, and some other features resemble the anatomy of dinosaurs.
The first remains of teletracer was discovered in 1933 in Tanzania. In the 1950s, the years they were studied by experts from the London Museum of natural history.
The discovery was missing some important bones such as the ankle. So then scientists are unable to accurately determine whether the animal is a closer relative of crocodiles and dinosaurs.
New bone of the same animal was found in 2015 in Tanzania, and this discovery helped to shed light on questions that remained unanswered.
Found remains prove that this animal was one of the oldest members of the family of archosaurs, and moved it, as representatives of group of crocodiles.
“Detection of teletrader fundamentally changes our view of ancient history relatives of the dinosaurs, says sterling Nesbitt, one of the authors of a new study. And at the same time, this discovery poses more questions than it answers”.
Teletracer, along with other relatives of the dinosaurs, lived on the vast territory from Russia to Brazil.
A group of scientists discovered the remains of this animal, is going to soon return to Tanzania to continue the search for other bones of the skeleton of this fossil.
Paul Rincon
Explorer bi-Bi-si on science