Zimbabwe dinosaur find reveals 210m-year-old Musango

Scientists have identified a new dinosaur species from Zimbabwe, Musango matusadonaensis, from a skeleton excavated on the shores of Lake Kariba in northern Zimbabwe in 2018.

The international team of palaeontologists said the dinosaur lived about 210 million years ago during the Late Triassic, when dinosaurs were beginning to spread but had not yet become the dominant land animals.

Researchers estimated Musango was about 4.5 metres long and weighed about 222 kilogrammes. They said it was lightly built compared with the giant long-necked dinosaurs that evolved later.

Paul Barrett, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, said the discovery suggests southern Africa was made up of several distinct ecosystems with different dinosaur species, rather than one largely uniform dinosaur fauna.

The findings were published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Scientists said the fossil is among the most complete dinosaur skeletons of its age found in Zimbabwe, with parts of the spine, ribs, arms, legs and feet preserved. Its skull has not been found, but researchers believe Musango was probably a herbivore or an omnivore.