dinosaur ruled the earth for at least 165 million eld . During this menstruum they evolved into a whole menagerie of wonderful and fantastic forms , and are survived today by the bird that flit from branch to branch in your garden . But when they first emerged from the evolutionary Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree is a muddy story . It now seemsthat they may have evolve up to 20 million years sooner than thought .
The results come from a study published inBiology Letters , in which research worker from the Natural History Museum , London , have created the most detailed dinosaur tree ever form . Using two separate methods , they created a massive phylogenetic tree that includes close to 1,000 dissimilar metal money of dinosaurs , enabling them to trace the animals decently back to their roots .
Both methodscame up with strikingly interchangeable results , indicate the validity of the outcome . They both showed that while the oldest dinosaur fogey to have ever been dated , known as Nyasasaurus , is think to be 240 million years old , the data point from the trees suggest that dinosaur may have evolved at least 10 million years earlier , and potentially up to 20 million years earlier .
This is possibly not too surprising . The dating of such ancient fossils comes with some leeway , as well as considering just how patchy the fossil record from this long ago for dinosaurs is . For model , while Nyasasurus is the best contender for the old dinosaur discovered so far , there is a full 12 - million - year gap before the next one pops up . What is interesting , however , is how researcher are able to use phylogenetics to assist satiate in these blank , and foreshadow where there are fogy to be found that could potentially predate the know one .
It also means that if the dates are to be trust , the direct early ancestors to dinosaurs may already have been around before the striking Permian extinction event that occurred 252 million years ago , and so were one of the few lineages that manage to survive . Also live as the Great Dying , it is thought that up to a staggering 95 percent of all species alive at the clip bit the dust , in what was the largest mass extinction result that has ever occurred .
Not only that , but the datum also shew that the branch that includes all known birdie may have split off between 108 and 69 million year ago , meaning that they may have already been fly , or at the very least gliding , around before the asteroid that kill off all their other congeneric hit .
