Nyasasaurus

Nyasasaurus (meaning "Lake Nyasa lizard") is an extinct genus of dinosauriform reptile from the Middle Triassic Manda Beds of Tanzania that may be the earliest known dinosaur. The type species N. parringtoni was first described in 1956 in the doctoral dissertation of English paleontologist Alan J. Charig, but it was not formally described until 2013. Previously, the oldest record of dinosaurs was from Argentina and dated back to the late Carnian stage, about 231.5 million years ago (Ma). Nyasasaurus comes from a deposit that dates back to the Anisian Stage, meaning that it predates other early dinosaurs by about 16 million years.