Africa’s oldest dinosaur discovered yet

Date:

Scientists have discovered the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur in Zimbabwe. The animal, with the Latin name Mbiresaurus raathi, lived about 230 million years ago and was only about a meter in size, the researchers involved in the find announced Thursday.

“It walked around on two legs and had a pretty small head,” said Yale University paleontologist Christopher Griffin, who excavated the first bone. The fossilized skeleton was discovered during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a research team from Zimbabwe, Zambia and the US.

Long tail and only 30 pounds
The researchers assume that the tiny dinosaur weighed only up to 30 kilograms, but had a long tail. It was probably an omnivore, feeding on plants, small animals and insects. The researchers assigned the dinosaur to the group Sauropodomorpha, which later also produced giant land-necked dinosaurs with the sauropods.

“I dug up the entire femur and knew right away it was a dinosaur and I held onto Africa’s oldest known dinosaur fossil,” said Griffin, 31, then a graduate student at Blacksburg Technical University in Virginia.

Dinosaur fossils previously found only in South America and India. Zimbabwe was on the supercontinent Pangea at about the same latitude as the dinosaur sites in South America, which is why the paleontologists started their search here.

Animal closely resembles fossils from South America
The Mbiresaurus raathi found in Zimbabwe closely resembles fossils from Brazil and Argentina, “confirming that South America and Africa were part of a contiguous landmass during the Late Triassic,” said Max Langer of the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

The dinosaur was named after the Mbire district in northeastern Zimbabwe, where the skeleton was found, and paleontologist Michael Raath, who first reported fossils in this region.

Source: Krone

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related

Also applies to blondies: Paris is now taking action against hairstyle discrimination

France now wants to comprehensively combat discrimination against people...

Interview about livestock farming – “Rabbits in cages are like dogs on a chain”

The Easter Bunny enjoys great popularity these days. ...

Better to wait – Why you shouldn’t fill up on Good Friday

There is a lot to do on Austrian roads...

Financial police punished – Tyrol and Vorarlberg: 126 reports in ski areas

During a key inspection by the financial police in...