For millions of years, dinosaurs have been extinct and the scientific community are still making remarkable discoveries of these ancient, gigantic creatures. However, our most fundamental knowledge about dinosaurs is now being challenged by a new study, that is also suggesting that dinosaurs originally come from a region that is now known as the United Kingdom.
British paleontologist and biologist H.G. Seeley first established the classification of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are also currently classified based on Seeley's standards which are based on pelvic bone structure. Ornithischians like the herbivorous Triceratops and Stegosaurus possessed bird-like hips, Saurischians like the carnivorous theropods such as the Tyrannosaurus rex have lizard hips along with herbivorous sauropodomorphs such as the long necked Apatosaurus.
This has been the dinosaur family tree published in every journal, encyclopedia and text book and now, a team of scientists will debunk this classification. For this new study, Matthew Baron from the University of Cambridge and his team has examined 74 different species and carefully noting 457 features and physical characteristics. The team also identified 21 specific anatomical traits that can categorize dinosaurs in an entirely different manner.
Many researchers and scientists consider this argument a major classification issue. Researchers were able to create a new dinosaur tree based on 21 traits. More specifically, the Ornithischians which possessed bird hips have been joined by the T. rex along with the other theropods with them. This new group is now called the Ornithoscelidans. Meanwhile, the sauropods are still known as Saurischians.
This also means that both Ornithoscelidans and Saurischians categories include carnivores and herbivores now which suggests that the precursor of all dinosaur species are most likely omnivorous.
Researchers also challenged the dinosaurs' place of origin. It is well known that dinosaur ancestry and evolution began in South America however, Baron and his team suggests that since the oldest dinosaur fossils originate from the Northern Hemisphere, it is also most likely that the newly classified branches originate from the United Kingdom.
This new study is published in the journal Nature.