The oldest meat-eating dinosaur has been discovered in the UK.
The ‘Pendraig milnerae’ was unearthed from a quarry in Wales and was a chicken-sized animal that would have been one metre long with its tail.
The new species was discovered in the 1950s but its fossils were mistakenly filed alongside crocodile remains in the Natural History Museum in London.
Scientists say their analysis suggests the small carnivorous dinosaur lived over 200 million years ago before more well-known killer dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus rex and the velociraptor.
“There is no obvious character that set this species apart,” Dr Stephan Spiekman from the Natural History Museum said.
“It has a certain combination of several characters that are unique amongst its group, which showed to us it was clearly a new species.”
The name ‘Pendraig milnerae’ honours both its Welsh origins and Angela Milner, a palaeontologist at the museum who was the driving force behind its dinosaurs.
Scientists say the discovery represents a major leap in their understanding of the early evolution of Europe’s dinosaurs.
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