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Thursday December 26, 2024

Remains of 210 million-year-old horse-sized dinosaur found

210 million-year-old dinosaur belonged to Musankwa sanyatiensis, was found in Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba

By Web Desk
May 30, 2024
Dinosaur, size of horse, found in Zimbabwe. — Unsplash/File
Dinosaur, size of horse, found in Zimbabwe. — Unsplash/File

The remains of a 210 million-year-old dinosaur leg that belonged to Musankwa sanyatiensis were found in Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba, near Spurwing Island by a multinational team of scientists.

The new species, which was discovered on May 30 in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, is the fourth dinosaur species to be discovered in the nation of southern Africa, according to Popular Science.

This dinosaur was not larger in size like most of the dinosaur species are.

The unique fossil was discovered in strata that indicate it lived in the Late Triassic era. The majority of Earth's major land masses were still united in the supercontinent Pangea during the Triassic Period. Apart from occasional seasonal monsoons, the climate was mainly mild and dry.

“This species is pretty old, dating back to the Late Triassic when the dinosaurs were getting larger and starting to dominate ecosystems,” Paul Barrett, a study co-author and paleontologist from London’s Natural History Museum, said in a statement.

“This is the time when they began to become more diverse and spread around the world, making it an important era to investigate,” he added.