A young Australian’s enthusiasm and eye for forgotten bones led to the discovery of a new dinosaur, and possibly the oldest sauropod in the world. His research, announced in Johannesburg last week, has laid the groundwork for new ways of thinking about the earliest dinosaur days.
Sauropod dinosaurs, with the popular brontosaurus, are the largest terrestrial animals to have existed.
Adam Yates, a postdoctoral researcher at the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at Wits University, said he found the thighbone of a forgotten dinosaur on the collection shelves when he visited South Africa in 2001.
As the person who identified the creature, Yates had the honour of naming the dinosaur Antetonitrus, which means ”before the thunder”.
”The bone was hard to miss, just because of its size,” he said.
The thighbone that caught his interest was discovered in 1981 near Ladybrand in the Karoo by James Kitching, a famous fossil finder.
Yates said when he first studied the bones, ”I knew straight away they were the first of the important sauropod”.
The Antetonitrus probably lived in the late Triassic peroid, about 210- million to 215-million years ago. It was the first sauropod to walk on all fours, though it is likely that it used its forelegs to scrounge for food.
”This is the earliest evidence we have of dinosaurs walking on four short solid feet,” Yates said.