A Harvard-educated economist who is mayor of Argentinian capital Buenos Aires has said that human beings and dinosaurs lived in the same era and fought one another. 

In an address which will have creationists across the globe high-fiving one another, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta used a somewhat odd analogy to convey his message that humans' capacity to organise had turned them into the Earth's dominant species. 

The mayor said he found the information in a book he'd read. Photo: Wikipedia

"When one man fought a dinosaur, the dinosaur won. Five men against a dinosaur, the dinosaur gobbled them up. Same with 20. But if those 20 organised themselves, they would kill it," said Larreta. 

Just in case his audience thought he was conjuring fantastical examples as a form of poetic licence, the mayor went on to explain that he had learned of the 'fact' from a book he read.  

There is broad scientific consensus that dinosaurs last roamed the earth some 65 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans only appeared some 200,000 years ago, with the genus Homo dating back some 3 million years.

Mayor Larreta's day job sees him running a city the size of Malta with a population of almost 3 million people.