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posted by janrinok on Friday November 11 2016, @11:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the so-old-its-news dept.

Researchers have discovered two small dinosaurs together with a lagerpetid, a group of animals that are recognized as precursors of dinosaurs. The discovery made in Brazil and reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 10 represents the first time that a dinosaur and a dinosaur precursor have ever been found together.

The new lagerpetid (Ixalerpeton) and saurischian dinosaur (Buriolestes) were unearthed from the ~230-million-year-old Carnian Santa Maria Formation—one of the oldest known rock units including dinosaur fossils anywhere in the world.

"We now know for sure that dinosaurs and dinosaur precursors lived alongside one another and that the rise of dinosaurs was more gradual, not a fast overtaking of other animals of the time," says Max Langer of Brazil's Universidade de São Paulo.

The discovery clearly shows that these animals were contemporaries of each other during the earliest stages of dinosaurs' evolution. The new lagerpetid specimen also preserves the first skull, scapular, and forelimb elements, plus associated vertebrae, known for the group, the researchers report. Tooth evidence also shows that the first dinosaurs most likely fed on "all kinds of small animals, but most probably not plants," Langer says.

The Creation Museum got it right?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lgw on Friday November 11 2016, @07:23PM

    by lgw (2836) on Friday November 11 2016, @07:23PM (#425781)

    That creation museum link is awesome. Look at how the science advances: when I was a kid, they thought the dinosaurs dies in the Flood, but creation scientists have since discovered that no, the Bible says "all animals", so the dinos were there in the ark. Revolutionary!

    The whole article is a hoot, right down to all the toy dinos in the gift shop - even fundie boys are dino-obsessed, I guess.

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