Scientists found Africa's oldest dinosaur in Zimbabwe

 

The remains of Africa's oldest dinosaur, which lived more than 230 million years ago, were discovered in Zimbabwe by scientists.

 

The one-meter-tall Mbiresaurus raathi raced on two legs and had a long neck and sharp jaws.

 

It was a species of sauropodomorph, a sauropod cousin that walked on four legs, according to scientists.

 

The skeleton was found during two missions to the Zambezi Valley, which took place in 2017 and 2019.

 

The deputy director of Zimbabwe's National Museums and Monuments, Darlington Munyikwa, who participated in the excursions, believes that triassic-era fossils are uncommon when discussing the evolution of early dinosaurs.

 

He said that fossils from that era - which ended more than 200 million years ago - had been unearthed in South America, India and now Zimbabwe.

 

According to him, the discovery is anticipated to give further information on the evolution and movement of early dinosaurs, when the planet was still only one large continent and Zimbabwe was located nearby.

 

For many years, Zimbabwe has known of further fossils in the region, and Mr. Munyikwa claimed that, subject to financing, there are yet more locations that require further research.

 

"It shows that dinosaurs didn't start out worldwide, ruling the world from the very beginning," Christopher Griffin, another scientist involved in the expedition, told the BBC.

 

"They, and the animals they lived with, seem to have been constrained to a particular environment in the far south - what is today South America, southern Africa and India."

 

He added that the find was the "oldest definitive dinosaur ever found in Africa".

 

The discovery was significant because it belonged to the lineage that gave rise to the sauropod dinosaurs, which also included the diplodocus and the brontosaurus, according to Prof. Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan of the University of Cape Town.

 

She told the BBC, "It informs us that during the evolution of dinosaurs, they were discovered on several continents, but they seem to have followed a hot humid climate rather than a dry hostile one.”We anticipate more coming from that area."

 

She continued by saying that recent gas mining exploration had taken done near the site of the discovery.

 

"I hope that there is a strict policy in place to ensure that if they encounter fossils, they hand them over to the museums, so we don't lose that material," she said.

 

The near-complete skeleton of the Mbiresaurus raathi is stored in a room in a museum in Zimbabwe's southern city of Bulawayo. It is thought to date to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, when today's Zimbabwe was part of the massive supercontinent Pangaea.

 

Dinosaurs were believed to be well adapted to the high latitudes where today's Zimbabwe is located, which were humid and had ample vegetation.