Africa’s oldest dinosaur found in Zimbabwe
- A two-legged omnivore, Mbiresaurus raathi walked the planet around 230 million years ago and weighed up to 30kg (66lbs)
- Its skeleton was discovered during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the US
Scientists in Zimbabwe have discovered the remains of Africa’s oldest dinosaur, which roamed the Earth around 230 million years ago.
The dinosaur, named Mbiresaurus raathi, was only about one metre (3.2 feet) tall, with a long tail, and weighed up to 30kg (66 pounds), according to the international team of palaeontologists that made the discovery.
“It ran around on two legs and had a fairly small head,” Christopher Griffin, the scientist who unearthed the first bone, said on Thursday.
Probably an omnivore that ate plants, small animals and insects, the dinosaur belongs to the sauropodomorph species, the same linage that would later include giant long-necked dinosaurs, said Griffin, a 31-year-old researcher at Yale University.
The skeleton was found during two expeditions in 2017 and 2019 by a team of researchers from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the United States.
“I dug out the entire femur and I knew in that moment, that it was a dinosaur and I was holding Africa’s oldest known dinosaur fossil,” said Griffin, who at the time was a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech University.