210-million-year-old dinosaur discovery reveals a lost world in Africa
Paleontologists have identified a new sauropodomorph dinosaur species, Musango matusadonaensis, in Zimbabwe. The discovery of this 210-million-year-old bipedal herbivore provides new insights into the early evolution of dinosaurs in Africa.
Why it matters
The find challenges previous assumptions about the distribution and evolutionary history of early dinosaurs in the African continent.
Africa boasts up to 25% of Earth's animal and plant species . This diversity is driven by diverse habitats: harsh deserts, vast grasslands, dense forests, towering mountains, lush coastlines and teeming seas. It is also due to deep evolutionary roots, as many animal and plant groups originated here in the distant past. Paleontologists have been excavating this material for nearly two centuries .
Africa is most famous for spectacular hominid fossils that reveal our own ancestry. However, the continent boasts many fabulous fossil finds, including those of the most familiar extinct animals - dinosaurs.
The first African dinosaur fossils to be noted scientifically hailed from the Eastern Cape, South Africa and were described in the 1850s. Since then, the African dinosaur map has expanded, with rich fossil beds in South Africa, Lesotho, Tanzania, Egypt, Niger, Malawi, Madagascar and Morocco.
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