Everyone knows about Tyrannosaurus rex, which existed about 67 million years ago, or Brachiosaurus (150 million years ago), or Stegosaurus (145-155 million years ago), but what about the species that started it all? What was the very first dinosaur?
A variety of anatomical features distinguish dinosaurs from the creatures that came before, but the trait that truly marks the divide has to do with their hips and legs.
"In particular, they make a much stronger connection between the hips and their backbone, and they do that by converting some of their vertebrae into a special modified structure called the sacrum that creates these additional connections to their hips," Professor Paul Barrett, a Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, said.
