Early dinosaur relative walked like a croc 早期恐龍親戚走路像隻鱷魚
One of the earliest relatives of dinosaurs had some features we associate today with crocodiles and alligators, a study suggests.
許多古生物學家都對恐龍始祖的長相感到好奇，然而這段時期的化石紀錄很稀少。
Some assumed they walked
on two legs, looking a bit like miniature dinosaurs. But the newly described
creature walked on four legs like a croc, the journal Nature
reports.
有些考古學家認為牠們是以兩條腿行走，看起來有點像是小型恐龍，但是根據《自然》雜誌報導，對這種生物的新描述爲像鱷魚，以四條腿行走。
The 2-3m (7-10ft)
carnivorous animal, unearthed in southern Tanzania, lived some 245 million
years ago during the Triassic Period. It pre-dated the earliest dinosaurs.
長度為2~3公尺（7~8英呎）的肉食動物，在坦尚尼亞聯合共和國南邊被挖掘，生存於2萬4千5百萬年前的三疊紀，是記載中最早的恐龍。
Prof
Paul Barrett, from London's Natural History Museum, one of the authors on the
new paper, said: "This is a little animal that we call Teleocrater. It's not very big...it probably would have weighed
about the same as the average family dog."
來自倫敦自然歷史博物館，身為這份新研究的作者之一的Paul Barrett教授表示：「我們把這種小型動物稱作Teleocrater，牠沒有很大…重量可能大約平均跟一支家庭寵物犬一樣。」
He told BBC Radio 5
Live: "Visually, it would have looked a bit like a souped-up version of a
komodo dragon, crossed maybe with something else. So it would have been a
slender animal, not a big armoured thing like a crocodile."
他告訴BBC Radio 5直播節目：「視覺上，他可能看起來有點像是一隻強化版的科摩多巨蜥跟其他生物的合體，所以是一種纖細的動物，而不像披甲的鱷魚」
Teleocrater rhadinus appeared just after a large group of animals known as archosaurs
split into one branch that led to dinosaurs (and, eventually, birds) and
another branch that led to today's alligators and crocodiles.
Teleocrater rhadinus出現於大量被分類為演化成恐龍的分支的祖龍類（archosaurs）之後（還有最後變鳥類的分支），另外一分支演化為現在的鱷魚。
Its anatomy combines
features present in the last common ancestor of these groups, such as a
crocodilian-like ankle joint, with some features considered characteristic of
dinosaurs.
牠的解剖結果包含這些群組的最後一個共同祖先的特色，像是像鱷魚的踝關節，還有一些被視為恐龍的特色。
The
first fossils belonging to Teleocrater were discovered in 1933 in Tanzania. They were studied at
London's Natural History Museum in the 1950s. But these specimens were missing
crucial bones, such as the ankle.
第一具 Teleocrater的化石在1933年於坦尚尼亞聯合共和國被發掘，當時1950年代在倫敦自然歷史博物館進行研究，但這些標本缺少像腳踝這最關鍵的骨頭。
Therefore, scientists at
the time could not tell whether they were more closely related to crocs or to
dinosaurs.
因此，當時的科學家不能判斷到底牠們比較相近於鱷魚還是恐龍。
The new specimens were
uncovered in the East African country in 2015, resolving some of those outstanding
questions. They show that it is one of the earliest members of the archosaur
family tree and that it walked like a crocodilian.
這具在2015年在東非被發現的新標本回答了這些尚未被解答的疑問，它們顯示這種生物是祖龍類家族樹中，最早的成員之一，而且牠們走路的方式像鱷魚。
Sterling
Nesbitt, one of the new study's authors from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, US,
said: "The discovery of Teleocrater fundamentally changes our
ideas about the earliest history of dinosaur relatives."
另一名新研究的作者，來自美國布萊斯克堡維吉尼亞理工大學的Sterling Nesbitt表示：「Teleocrater的發現基本上顛覆了我們對於恐龍旁系親戚最早歷史的想法。」
But he added: "It also raises far more questions than it
answers."
但他補充：「這項發現比起回答的問題，帶來更多疑問。」
Teleocrater, along with other dinosaur relatives, lived across a wide range of different regions, from Russia to India to Brazil.
Teleocrater 跟其他恐龍親戚一樣，居住在許多不同的區域，從俄羅斯到印度到巴西都有。
The
team's next steps are to return to southern Tanzania to look for more remains
and missing pieces of the Teleocrater skeleton.
團隊的下一步就是要回到南坦尚尼亞去尋找更多遺跡，還有Teleocrater缺少的骨架碎片。
