Scientists have identified the oldest-known forerunner of the dinosaurs and are expressing surprise at how little it resembled one.
Researchers on Wednesday described fossils of a long-necked, four-legged, meat-eating reptile called Teleocrater rhadinus that reached up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and prowled a Tanzanian flood plain roughly 245 million years ago.
It lived during the Triassic Period millions of years before the first dinosaurs. Scientists called it a close cousin rather than a direct dinosaur ancestor.