Scientists have discovered the bones of a dinosaur-like creature which roamed the earth at least 10 million years before the oldest known dinosaur.
The BBC reports fossil bones of the asilisaurus kongwe species were found in Tanzania and a study says it lived about 240 million years ago.
Scientists say the discovery will force them to reassess the early stages of dinosaur evolution. Their findings were described in the journal Nature.
The study was led by Dr Sterling Nesbitt from the University of Texas at Austin in the United States.
He said: "This new evidence suggests that [dinosaurs] were really only one of several large and distinct groups of animals that exploded in diversity in the Triassic period, including silesaurs [like this one], pterosaurs, and several groups of crocodilian relatives."
