Scientists have unearthed in Zimbabwe the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur, which lived than 230 million years ago. The Mbiresaurus raathi was one metre tall, ran on two legs and had a long neck and jagged teeth.
Scientists said it was a species of sauropodomorph, a relative of the sauropod, which walked on four legs. The skeleton was discovered during two expeditions, in 2017 and 2019, to the Zambezi Valley.
Darlington Munyikwa, deputy director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and who was part of the expeditions, told the BBC that fossils from that era – which ended more than 200 million years ago – had been unearthed in South America, India and now Zimbabwe.
The find is expected to shed more light on evolution and migration of early dinosaurs, back when the world was one huge continent and Zimbabwe was at the same latitude as those countries, he said.
Credit: bbc.com
