Dinosaurs originated in South America!

Bones discovered in a New Mexico quarry indicate that the first dinosaurs appeared in what is now South America, with some migrating northward into the US as the continent began to split apart.

The 213-million-year-old fossils of previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur Tawa hallae include several of the best preserved dinosaur skeletons from the Triassic Period.
Tawa was about six feet long - the size of a large dog, but with a much longer tail.

"If you have continents splitting apart, you get isolation," said lead author Sterling Nesbit of the University of Texas at Austin. "So when barriers develop, you would expect that multiple carnivorous dinosaurs in a region should represent a closely related endemic radiation. But that is what we don’t see in early dinosaur evolution."

Instead, the research team found three distinct carnivorous dinosaurs – including Tawa – in the fossil-rich beds at Ghost Ranch.