Palaeontologia africana

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/13253

ISSN (print): 0078-8554 ISSN (electronic): 2410-4418 For queries regarding content of Palaeontologia africana collections please contact Jonah Choiniere by email : jonah.choiniere@wits.ac.za or Tel : 011 717 6684

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Early Jurassic

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A sauropodomorph dinosaur from the ?Early Jurassic of Lusitu, Zambia
    (2015-04-01) Choiniere, Jonah N
    Dinosaur material has been reported from Zambia but remains undescribed. The first record, from the upper Luangwa Valley, was mistakenly identified and pertains instead to indeterminate dicynodonts. The only other report on Zambian dinosaur material concerns associated partial hind limb and vertebral material collected from an Upper Karoo sandstone in the vicinity of Lusitu. We provide a description of this specimen, the first definitive dinosaur to be reported from Zambia, and identify it as an indeterminate basal sauropodomorph. Unfortunately, the precise age of the specimen remains unknown, although an Early Jurassic age seems likely.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Preliminary report of dinosaur tracks in Qwa Qwa, South Africa
    (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, 1999) Gow, Chris E; Latimer, E M
    We record the presence of tridactyl dinosaur tracks preserved on a siltstone surface in a watercourse in a north eastern Free State game park.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Massospondylus carinatus Owen 1854 (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Lower Jurassic of South Africa: Proposed conservation of the usage by designation of a neotype
    (Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010-12) Yates, Adam M.; Barrett, Paul M.
    The purpose of this article is to preserve the usage of the binomen Massospondylus carinatus by designating a neotype specimen. Massospondylus is the most abundant basal sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic strata of southern Africa. This taxon forms the basis for an extensive palaeobiological literature and is the eponym of Massospondylidae and the nominal taxon of a biostratigraphical unit in current usage, the ‘Massospondylus Range Zone’. The syntype series of M. carinatus (five disarticulated and broken vertebrae) was destroyed during World War II, but plaster casts and illustrations of the material survive. Nonetheless, these materials cannot act as type material for this taxon under the rules of the ICZN Code. In order to avoid nomenclatural instability, we hereby designate BP/1/4934 (a skull and largely complete postcranial skeleton) as the neotype of Massospondylus carinatus.