Musankwa Sanyatiensis | 17 Jun 2024

Source: Phys.org

Recently, scientists have discovered fossils of a new dinosaur species, Musankwa sanyatiensis, along the shores of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe.

This herbivorous dinosaur weighed around 390 kg and lived in swampy areas during the Late Triassic period (about 210 million years ago).
It is named after the houseboat used during the expeditions and the Sanyati River flowing into Lake Kariba.
It is the first dinosaur named from the Mid-Zambezi Basin in over 50 years and only the 4th dinosaur species named from the country.
Africa has a long history of dinosaur discoveries, with the first found in South Africa just 3 years after the term "dinosaur" was coined in 1842.
Dinosaurs (a diverse group of reptiles) lived around 243 to 233 million years ago, and diversified into various forms during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
They include birds, which evolved from theropods, and extinct non-avian dinosaurs.