PRE-DINOSAUR FOSSIL FOUND

A TEAM from the University of the Witwatersrand announced on Wednesday it has discovered a 260-million-year-old fossil animal species in the Northern Cape. The fossil is the skull of a sheep-sized animal that is the most primitive member yet found of a group of plant-eaters on the evolutionary line to mammals. The group is called Anomodonts. They were the dominant land creatures during the Permian period more than 250-million years ago — which precedes the dinosaur era. The find supports the idea that South Africa is the origin of the distant ancestors of mammals.