Researchers in Zimbabwe have found the remaining parts of Africa’s most seasoned dinosaur, which wandered the earth around quite a while back.
The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was something like one meter (3.2 feet) tall, with a long tail, and gauged as much as 30 kilograms (66 pounds), as per the global group of scientists that made the disclosure.
“It went around on two legs and had a tiny head,” Christopher Griffin, the researcher who uncovered the primary bone, told AFP on Thursday.
Likely an omnivore that ate plants, little creatures, and bugs, the dinosaur has a place with the sauropodomorph species, the very lineage that would later incorporate goliath long-necked dinosaurs, said Griffin, a 31-year-old specialist at Yale University.
The skeleton was found during two endeavors in 2017 and 2019 by a group of scientists from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the United States.
“Mbiresaurus raathi is very similar to certain dinosaurs of the same age identified in Brazil and Argentina, underscoring the fact that South America and Africa were part of a continuous landmass throughout the Late Triassic,”
Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
“I recovered the whole femur and I knew at that time that it was a dinosaur and I was holding Africa’s most established known dinosaur fossil,” said Griffin, who at the time was a Ph.D. applicant at Virginia Tech University.
His group’s discoveries were first published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Dinosaurs’ remaining parts from a similar period have recently been tracked down in South America and India.
Dinosaurs’ remaining parts from a similar time have recently been tracked down in South America and India.
The scientists chose the Zimbabwe site for digging after determining that when all continents were joined in a single expanse of land known as Pangea, it lay broadly within the scope of previous discoveries in cutting-edge South America.
“Mbiresaurus raathi is amazingly like a few dinosaurs of a similar age tracked down in Brazil and Argentina, building up that South America and Africa were important for consistent bodies of land during the Late Triassic,” said Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
The dinosaur is named after the Mbire locale, in the upper east of Zimbabwe, where the skeleton was found, and scientist Michael Raath, who previously announced fossils from around here.
“What this (revelation) does is it expands the reach that we realized the absolute first dinosaurs lived in,” Griffin said.
Different examples were found nearby, and all are reposited in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, in the second biggest city, Bulawayo.
“The revelation of the Mbiresaurus is a thrilling and extraordinary find for Zimbabwe and the whole palaeontological field,” said gallery guardian Michel Zondo.
“The way that the Mbiresaurus skeleton is practically finished makes it an ideal reference material for additional finds.”
More information: Christopher Griffin, Africa’s oldest dinosaurs reveal early suppression of dinosaur distribution, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05133-x. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05133-x
Journal information: Nature
