(CNN) The so-called Frankenstein dinosaur is the missing link connecting plant-eating dinosaurs such as the Stegosaurus to a group including carnivorous ones such as the Tyrannosaurus rex, scientists have suggested.

The vegetarian dinosaur walked the Earth around 150 million years ago and is officially known as the Chilesaurus. It initially confused scientists because of its strange physical characteristics, apparently drawn from two groups of dinosaurs that were thought to be separate.

Originally discovered in South America, the Chilesaurus has the head of a carnivore but flat teeth suited to grinding plants.

"Chilesaurus almost looks like it was stitched together from different animals, which is why it baffled everybody," said Matthew Baron, a Ph.D. student in the University of Cambridge's department of earth sciences and joint first author of a new study on the dinosaur published Wednesday.

The researchers, from Cambridge and London's Natural History Museum, analyzed more than 450 anatomical characteristics of early dinosaurs to find the right place for the Chilesaurus in the dinosaur family tree.

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