Oldest African dinosaur discovered in Zimbabwe

• SHINGAI NYOKA

A RARE one-metre-long dinosaur skeleton unearthed in northern Zimbabwe has been confirmed as the oldest dinosaur find in Africa.

The research published in the journal, Nature, on Wednesday, says the plant-eating, two-legged creature was alive around 230 million years ago, dating from what is known as the Triassic early dinosaur age.

It was named Mbiresaurus raathi after the fossil-rich Mbire district where it was found. The dinosaur was an early ancestor of the sauropods – the better-known large, long-necked four-legged dinosaurs.

It was a rare find, according to Darlington Munyikwa, the deputy director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.

He told the BBC that fossils from the Triassic age have been unearthed in South America, India and now Zimbabwe.

It is expected to shed more light on the evolution and migration of early dinosaurs, when the world was one super continent, he added.

Munyikwa was part of an international team of palaeontologists led by the US Virginia Tech University and Christopher Griffin, who made the discovery.

Research to confirm the findings has been ongoing since 2017. Zimbabwe has been aware of other fossils in the area since 1982.

Munyikwa said there were new and more sites that needed further exploration in the area subject to funding availability.

The near-complete skeleton of the Mbiresaurus is stored in a room in a museum in Zimbabwe’s southern city of Bulawayo.

– BBC

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