According to a recent study published in Nature, Zimbabwe has produced one of the oldest dinosaur species ever found on Earth and the oldest confirmed dinosaur species ever found in Africa. The discovery provides fresh insight into the origin of dinosaurs and answers one of the most important questions in Triassic paleontology. Scientists would want to know why dinosaurs inhabited only a small area of the prehistoric supercontinent Pangaea.
Dinosaur Primeval Times
Previous Discovery of Mbiresaurus Raathi Dinosaur
In 2017, researchers started investigating the Pebbly Arkose Formation in northern Zimbabwe. The dig's showpiece specimen, Mbiresaurus raathi (M. raathi), a nearly complete skeleton named after Mbire, has been revealed after five years of meticulous excavation and COVID delays. Mbire is the Shona dynasty that previously dominated the area. The species was named after Michael Raath, who assisted in the discovery of the first fossils in the area.
According to the researchers, the specimen is on par with the oldest dinosaurs ever discovered, at about 230 million years old.
Recent Discovery of Mbiresaurus Raathi Dinosaur
According to Live Science, the recently discovered dinosaur belongs to the sauropodomorph order, which includes the enormous and well-known long-necked sauropods, Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus.
At around 6 feet (2 meters) long, or about as long as a Shetland pony, and 1.5 feet (0.5 m) tall at the hip, M.raathi wasn't tiny, but it would have been dwarfed by later sauropods, such as the massive 122-foot-long (37 m) Patagotitan.
M. raathi resided close to the banks of an ancient river, in what is now Zimbabwe, during the late Triassic period. Its ecology was diverse and home to many other animals besides dinosaurs.
An important part of the story, according to the study's first author, Christopher Griffin, a vertebrate paleontologist at Yale University, is about all the many species that were discovered together. The dig uncovered multiple cynodont protomammals, armored crocodilians, odd rhynchosaurs with beaked reptiles, and even evidence of an early meat-eating dinosaur.
This collection resembles fossils that paleontologists may anticipate discovering across the ocean, hidden in the Patagonian steppes or tucked away in Brazilian rocky outcrops.
Trassic Period
Pangaea, a massive landmass that included all of Earth's continents, was created during the Triassic epoch. Many areas that are currently separated by entire seas, like the coasts of South America and Africa, historically shared vegetation and fauna because of this past connectivity. According to the National History Museum, the Triassic Period (252-201 million years ago) began after Earth's worst-ever extinction event devastated life.
Griffin claimed that if you draw a line through Pangaea from northern Argentina to southern Brazil, it also passes through northern Zimbabwe.
As a result, M. raathi shares several characteristics with other late Triassic sauropodomorphs, including the misleadingly named Eoraptor and the dog-sized Saturnalia. This species is both found in India and Brazil. It's unclear why particular animal species were limited to specific regions of Pangaea during this period. You may assume that traveling across a supercontinent would be simple, but it appears not, according to Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
However, sites like the Pebbly Arkose Formation provide hints to this age-old riddle. In an earlier study, the researchers hypothesized that rather than physical borders like oceans, such a variety of temperature patterns maintained Triassic animals in place.Similar animals move freely within this particular latitude band, but not beyond it. This is possibly due to environmental obstacles like high heat or drought.
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