Palaeontologia africana
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/13253
ISSN (print): 0078-8554
ISSN (electronic): 2410-4418
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Item A dicynodont trackway from the Cistecephalus Assemblage Zone in the Karoo, East of Graaff-Reinet, South Africa(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 2002) de Klerk, William JThis paper reports a partially exposed late Permian palaeosurface with preserved vertebrate tracks at the "Asante Sana" private game reserve in the vicinity of Petersburg, 46km east of Graaff-Reinet. Excavation of the palaeosurface over an area of 34m2 revealed clear footprints and trackways of six large tetrapods that walked in a westerly direction across a semi-consolidated muddy substrate in the distal floodplain area of a large fluvial system. Clear heteropodous impressions of the footpads and individual toes and claws are preserved as concave epirelief moulds. It is concluded that these fossil tracks were made by a group of therapsids, specifically a group of large dicynodonts, possibly Aulacephalodon. The tracks are here assigned to the ichnospecies Dicynodontipus icelsi sp. nov. A continuous trackway and numerous less distinct individual prints and markings made by smaller tetrapods are also preserved on the palaeosurface. It is probable that these tracks were left by Diictodon, a small common dicynodont of the time.Item Fossil vertebrate tracks near Murraysburg, Cape Province(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1990) McRae, Colin SThe presence of a palaeosurface with a set of relatively large concave epirelief tracks that extend for some 60 m is documented and described. The trackmaker is believed to be a member of the genus Aulacephalodon Seeley 1898 or Rhachiocephalus Seeley 1898 and to have walked across a submerged silty surface on a floodplain. A mud veneer deposited under relatively low energy conditions soon after the tracks were made, and the thermal alteration of the sediment by nearby diabase intrusives, contributed to the preservation of this set of fossil tracks.Item Dicynodont postcrania from the Triassic of Namibia and their implication for the systematics of Kannemeyeriiforme dicynodonts(Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009-12) Govender, Romala; Yates, AdamRecent years have seen a renewed interest in the postcranial anatomy of Triassic dicynodonts from Africa. This study investigates the previously undescribed dicynodont postcrania from the Omingonde Formation of Namibia. Two valid dicynodont species, based upon crania, are known from this formation: Dolichuranus primaevus and Kannemeyeria lophorhinus. Dolichuranus displays a primitive generalized cranial anatomy that has made it difficult to place in Triassic dicynodont phylogeny. Some of the postcranial specimens can be positively identified as D. primaevus on the basis that they were associated with skulls of this species. Two scapula morphologies can be distinguished among the postcranial specimens that are not positively associated with diagnostic cranial remains. One of these shares similarities with the scapula of Kannemeyeria simocephalus from South Africa and is provisionally referred to K. lophorhinus. The other displays unusual characters such as the absence of an acromion and a tubercle on the lateral surface of the scapula at the level where the acromion would be expected. Inclusion of the new postcranial data in a cladistic analysis of Triassic dicynodonts resolves the position of D. primaevus as a member of Sinokannemeyeriidae. It also causes an enigmatic unnamed postcranial taxon from equivalently aged beds in South Africa to fall within the Sinokannemeyeriidae. These results highlight the importance of including postcranial data in analyses of Triassic dicynodont relationships.