Dinosaurs dominated the Earth, totally or partially, for at least 160 million years before the K-T (Cretaceous–Tertiary) extinction event, which saw the disappearance of the giant lizards. The earliest of these animals were small, two-legged creatures, but some of their predecessors grew to enormous sizes, and walked on all fours. How these immense herbivores, known as sauropods, evolved was still a mystery until recently, when a newly-discovered fossil threw a new light on the links between the early and late dinosaurs, the BBC News reports.

The new skeleton, which is of a creature that walked on two legs, but could walk on all fours as well, is remarkably well preserved, and it allowed scientists to determine that it represents the missing link between the two types or reptiles. Details of the amazing discovery have been published in the latest issue of the respected scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The fossils were unearthed at a location in the Senekal district of South Africa.

“What we have is a big, short-footed, barrel-chested, long-necked, small-headed dinosaur. The earliest ancestral dinosaur – the great grand-daddy of all dinosaurs – walked on two legs. This [one] is intermediate between those bipedal forms and the true gigantic sauropods,” University of ... (read more)