Oldest dinosaur found, according to ScienceDaily, 4 March 2010 and Nature, vol 464, p95, 4 March 2010. An international team of researchers has found the bones of 14 individuals of a creature named Asilisaurus kongwe in Middle Triassic rocks in Tanzania. The creature is a member of a group named Silesaurs, considered to be the closest relative to dinosaurs. Asilisaurus is described as being 0.5 to 1 metre (1.5 to 3 feet) tall at the hips, and were 1 to 3 metres (3 to 10 feet) long, weighed about 10 to 30 kilograms (22 to 66 pounds), walked on four legs, and likely ate mostly plants or a combination of plants with a little meat. This is very different to the usual theories about dinosaur precursors, which were believed to be two legged carnivores. Randall Irmis, curator of palaeontology at the Utah Museum of Natural History commented: "The crazy thing about this new dinosaur discovery is that it is so very different from what we all were expecting, especially the fact that it is herbivorous and walked on four legs.” He went on to say: "The research suggests that at least three times in the evolution of dinosaurs and their closest relatives, meat-eating animals evolved into animals with diets that included plants.”

According to the Nature Editor’s summary, “the real interest is the early date, showing that we still know very little about the earliest stages of dinosaur and pterosaur evolution”. The fossils were found in Middle Triassic (Anisian) rocks, around 245 million years old. This date was estimated on the basis of the other fossils found at the site, i.e. crocodile-like creatures named cynodonts and dicynodonts. This makes the new fossils at least 15 million years


Editorial Comment: Notice that the fossils were dated by the presence of fossils that are already believed to be older than dinosaurs because of prior belief in evolution. There is no evidence this creature evolved from or into any other animal. It is simply different from other “sauruses”. If it had been found in a layer of rock that had already been given a younger date no-one would claim it was a dinosaur ancestor. The belief in meat-eating dinosaurs evolving into plant eating dinosaurs three times over is also based on an already held belief in evolution, rather than real observations. When evolutionist claim something evolved independently two or more times it usually means they cannot reconcile their fossil dates and their evolutionary trees – an indication that one or both of these beliefs is wrong.

Evidence News 24 March 2010