From British daily The Morning Star:
Oldest dinosaur comes up for airNo, it is Thecodontosaurus antiquusTuesday 03 November 2009
Scientists have launched an excavation project to dig up Britain’s oldest dinosaur after it spent more than 210 million years entombed in rock.
The condontosaurus antiquus
is the oldest known dinosaur in Britain and one of the oldest in the world.A rock specimen discovered at Tytherington Quarry in South Gloucestershire in the 1970s contains the fossilised remains of the so-called Bristol Dinosaur.
Scientists at the University of Bristol were finally able to begin the excavation project after securing a grant of £295,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Bristol Dinosaur project will last three years and will see a complete skeletal reconstruction of the dinosaur attempted for the first time.
During the Triassic period, the kangaroo-sized, plant-eating species lived in herds grazing on the lush islands around what is now Bristol.
The outlines of these islands can still be seen today in the shape of the land - Bristol’s Downs were one such island.
