LITTLE DINOSAUR MAY BE BIG GUYS' GRANDDAD

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 6, 1993                   TAG: 9301060016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO   
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
LITTLE DINOSAUR MAY BE BIG GUYS' GRANDDAD
Scientists said Tuesday they had moved a step closer to identifying the common ancestor of all dinosaurs with the discovery of a dog-sized meat eater in the barren foothills of the Andes.
"This may be as close as we ever come to that common ancestor," said University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno at a National Geographic Society news conference announcing his findings.
He said the two-legged carnivore, measuring 40 inches from its nose to the tip of its tail, is structurally the most primitive dinosaur ever discovered, and dates to the beginnings of the dinosaur age 225 million years ago.
Sereno named the species "Eoraptor," or "dawn stealer," because it lived at the dawn of the dinosaur period and, because of its small size, probably used guile rather than power to take its prey.
"It would have been a crafty hunter, probably eating small animals and snatching the young of larger species," he said. He described the 25-pound reptile as a "fleet-footed animal with hollow bones. It was quite a predator."
"This fills an important blank in the dinosaur family tree," said National Geographic magazine Editor William Graves. He noted that half of the 350 known dinosaur species have been identified in the past 20 years.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB