Meet South Africa’s newest dinosaur

Jun 30, 2015

Scientists have announced the discovery of a new 200-million-year-old dinosaur in South Africa.

South African and Argentinian palaeontologists say fossils of theSefapanosaurus remained hidden for decades among thousands of fossils at the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) at Wits University. The bones were discovered in the 1930s in the Free State, some 30km from South Africa's border with Lesotho.

The researchers have announced the discovery in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society.

The name Sefapanosaurus is derived from the Sotho word meaning “cross”. This is because one of the dinosaur's ankle bones was shaped like a cross. The creature is believed to have been a medium-sized sauropod dinosaur.

Quoted on the discovery in the Wits University statement, Dr Jonah Choiniere, co-author and senior researcher in dinosaur palaeobiology at the ESI, says the find is significant.

“This new animal shines a spotlight on Southern Africa and shows us just how much more we have to learn about the ecosystems of the past, even here in our own ‘backyard’. And it also gives us hope that this is the start of many such collaborative palaeo-research projects between South Africa and Argentina that could yield more such remarkable discoveries,” he said.

The university says researchers have identified the remains of at least four individuals in the ESI collection at Wits – including limb bones, foot bones and several vertebrae.