Demoting a dinosaur

Azendohsaurus just shed its dinosaur affiliation. A careful new analysis of A. madagaskarensis - this time based on the entire skull rather than on just teeth and jaws - aligns this 230-million-year-old animal with a different and very early branch on the reptile evolutionary tree. Many aspects of Azendohsaurus are far more primitive than previously assumed, which in turn means that its plant-eating adaptations, similar to those found some early dinosaurs, were developed independently. The new analysis is published in the journal Palaeontology...

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