DINOSAURS of the late Triassic period had competition in the form of a huge ancestor of today’s mammals, scientists in Poland have revealed.

Researchers have named Lisowicia bojani, an elephant-sized dicynodont, part of a group known as the “mammal-like reptiles”  — because of anatomical similarities to mammals, which evolved from similar creatures.

Mammal-like reptiles dominated life on land for 50 million years before the evolution of the first dinosaurs but disappeared in the extinctions at the end of the Triassic that left dinosaurs dominant worldwide. 

Dicynodonts coexisted with dinosaurs for much of the Triassic, but none has previously been found the size of Lisowicia, which was almost 15 feet long and nine feet high at the shoulder. 

Polish Academy of Scientists researcher Dr Tomasz Sulej said Lisowicia, named for the Polish village of Lisowice, “changes our ideas about the latest history of dicynodonts.”