#Nyasasaurus

[alex-fictus]

My Mesozoic is Blue 💙💙💙

Nyasasaurus - Hatzegopteryx - Maiasaurus

Liopleurodon - Unenlagia - Qianzhousaurus

Sarcosuchus - Sinomacrops - Vallibonavenatrix

Majungasaurus - Maip macrothorax - Arkansaurus

Gastonia - Styracosaurus - Ankylosaurus

Troodon (?) - Megalosaurus** - Brachiosaurus

Stickers || Phone Wallpapers Masterlist

**Megalosaurus is in my updates list. Gotta take care of those broken wrists by the time their discovery day comes around next year!

[rolethelaglord]

pluto and charon as nyasasaurus!

nyasasaurus was a genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur from the middle triassic manda formation of tanzania! (avemetatarsalian basically means they are more closely related to birds than to crocodillians!) these little three foot critters were herbivores! neat little guys :)

their name literally means "lake nyasa lizard"

[unscrupulousartist]

A 10m longboi

[dinos-and-stuff]

Random Dino Facts #5

The title of earliest known dinosaur goes to Nyasasaurus Parringtoni, found near Lake Nyasa in Tanzania sometime in the 1930’s.

This creature lived roughly 245 million years ago, predating other dinosaurs by 10-15 million years. The significance of this species was not realised until a study in 2013 classified it as a basal dinosaur instead of an archosaur.

It was originally named Thecodontosaurus Alophos in 1932 before further examination showed it to be a completely different genus. After this it was almost completely ignored by the palaeontology community until 2013 due to the almost complete lack of fossils, with only one humerus and eleven vertebrae. Due to the lack of fossils, we do not know what the creature ate.

The study:

[saritapaleo]

Patreon request for @/rome.and.stuff (Instagram) - Asilisaurus kongwe

Asilisaurus kongwe means “Ancient Ancestor.” As one of the first silesaurs, Asilisaurus is one of the oldest-known Avemetatarsalians (the clade which includes dinosaurs, silesaurs, and pterosaurs.) Found in the Manda Formation of Tanzania, it lived during the earliest portion of the Late Triassic. It appears to have been very common (or at least very prone to fossilization) as it is known from a relatively large amount of fossils.

Based on the length of its limbs, Asilisaurus was likely quadrupedal, but probably could have also reared up on its hind legs. It had no teeth in the tip of its snout, indicating the presence of a small beak, and also had fewer teeth than other silesaurs. Because of this, it is hypothesized that Asilisaurus was an omnivore or even a herbivore. The peglike shape of its teeth may have also lended to piscivory. As silesaurs seemed to have diets which were just as varied as dinosaurs (the Argentinian Lewisuchus was a specialized carnivore, the North American Kwanasaurus was an obligate herbivore, and the Polish Silesaurus was an insectivore and herbivore), Asilisaurus’ diet can’t be based on phylogenetic bracketing.

There seem to be two different adult morphologies of Asilisaurus: a “slender” form and a “robust” form. While traditionally regarded as a sign of sexual dimorphism, newer studies show that this could have simply been individual variation and a difference of growth in plentiful vs depleted environments (ie epigenetics), similar to differences seen in Plateosaurus and the modern Alligator.

In the Early Carnian of Tanzania, Asilisaurus kongwe would have lived alongside a variety of pseudosuchians such as Nundasuchus and Mambawakale, as well as the possible early dinosaur, Nyasasaurus. The environment was rich in synapsids as well, including dicynodonts like Angonisaurus, Kannemeyeria, and Tetragonias, and cynodonts like Cynognathus and Diademodon. Asilisaurus would have been preyed on by the aphanosaur Teleocrater and possibly some of the larger, carnivorous cynodonts, which is why I have given it spots for camouflage!

[neovenatorgirlteeth]

DINOVEMBER 1/13: Gondwanax paraisensis

Hello everyone! I'm doing Dinovember again this year, but a little differently. I'll only be doing 3 drawings a week (ish) in order to pace myself, as in past years going the full 30 hasn't worked for me in the past. As per usual, I'll be following my own list which is sorted oldest-youngest, with the focus this year being on new discoveries.

Talking of new discoveries, Gondwanax was only described in September this year from a femur (and other potentially assignable scraps) found in Brazil's Santa Maria formation. Gondwanax was one of the oldest known dinosauromorphs at 240Ma-230Ma, rivalling animals like Nyasasaurus, the closely related Asilisaurus from Tanzania and furthering our knowledge of the origins of dinosauria.

Gondwanax has been identified as a silesaur, a group of primarily herbivorous archosaurs which it looks increasingly like are actually the long sort-after Triassic representatives of the ornithischian dinosaurs. The phylogeny of Gondwanax published in it's description supports this, placing it and the rest of "silesauridae" as grading from basal dinosauria into crown ornithischia.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Trivia Tuesday

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

picking these 10 was very difficult there are too many triassic weirdos and I'm not even touching the sea right now

[same-pic-rick-roll]

Nyasasaurus is a dinosaur.

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

Life in the Middle Triassic

(first row: Euparkeria, Tanystropheus; second row: Nothosaurus, Nyasasaurus; third row: Thalattosaurus (top), Mastodonsaurus (bottom), Cynognathus, Longisquama; fourth row: Shringasaurus, Sharovipteryx, Placodus)

Art by:

Tanystropheus, Nyasasaurus - Mark Witton

Thalattosaurus - Nobu Tamura

Nothosaurus - Johnson Mortimer

Mastodonsaurus - Vladislav Egorov

Sharovipteryx, Longisquama - Julio Lacerda

Shringasaurus - Ntvtiko

Cynognathus - Gabriel Ugueto

Euparkeria - Taenadoman

Placodus - Sergey Krasovsky

The Triassic is a fantastic time if you’re interested in weird creatures and it’s a shame that it often gets overlooked in favor of the more dinosaur-rich Jurassic and Cretaceous. The main reason for the abundance of Triassic weirdos is that the time period was bookended on both sides by mass extinctions: The end Permian mass extinction had just left the planet empty, with lots of opportunities for evolution to go crazy as the the few survivors refilled niches. At the end of the Triassic however (Spoiler alert), another mass extinction wiped out most of the newly established forms, which is why they look so foreign and strange to us - bizarre anomalies that only existed for a brief period of time and didn‘t leave any successors to help us understand them better.

One of those weirdos is leg-winged Sharovipteryx. Because yes, while every other vertebrate on the planet decided that arms are pretty good for flying, Sharovipteryx wanted to not be like other girls and used its legs instead. While it wasn‘t capable of powered flight (only birds, bats and pterosaurs ever accomplished that), it was probably a decent glider (Dyke, 2006).

From the same fossil beds as Sharovipteryx comes another unusual critter: Longisquama. At first glance it might look like your typical little lizard - if it wasn‘t for its back being covered with those long …scales? Feathers? Maybe just plant leaves that somehow fossilzed next to the animal? We really are not sure what exactly is going on with the back of this little guy. Although it seems like the most recent idea is, that those appendages are not feathers in the sense that birds have them, but that both feathers and Longisquama‘s structures might be homologous, meaning that they come from the same origin (Buchwitz, 2012). As for what were they doing with the structures? Probably sexual display, which is the paleontology version of saying “we‘re not sure, but unless you‘ve got a better idea, we‘re sticking with this one“.

(Oh, and btw both Longisquama and Sharovipteryx are prime topics for David Peters, self-proclaimed paleontologist that apparently loves to spread misinformation and seems to have beef with the entire paleo-community - so be cautious when you see something written by him. Man, I really don‘t wanna be involved with paleo drama. I wasn‘t even aware there was paleo drama)

The placement of both Sharovipteryx as well as Longuisquama on the family tree is pretty uncertain, but most likely they fall somewhere around the base of the Archosaur lineage, a group that you will hear a lot about in the future, as it includes the flying pterosaurs, everything related to crocodiles, and of course the dinosaurs. The earliest of those you might see around this time in the form of medium-sized average-looking bipeds like Nyasasaurus.

Also settled around the base of the archosaur line is long necked Tanystropheus (although some of its fossils were believed to be flying pterosaurs for a long time because its neck vertebrae were mistaken for wing finger bones). With a length of around 5 m it was pretty big for the time. It most likely lived a semi-aquatic lifestyle, staying on the shores while it used it oversized neck to catch fish from the water.

During the Triassic we see quite a few reptile groups going for more aquatic lifestyle. While some, like the Thalattosaurs were relatively short-lived, others dominated for most of the age of reptiles. One of the most prominent groups are the Sauropterygia. The name (which translates to “lizard flippers“) might not sound too familiar, but this is the group that will later contain the Loch-Ness-monster looking plesiosaurs and their shorter-necked cousins, the pliosaurs. In the early days of this group the animals weren‘t quite as well adapted for the waters yet, but you can already see were the journey is going. Nothosaurus for examples, lived probably similar to seals, while Placodus was more terrestrial and only spent time in the water to forage for food.

Most of this was all very reptile-focused. That is because by now the synapsids, those early cousins of our own lineage, that roamed the world as giant beasts during the permian, had lost their positions at the top of the food chain. For the most part, they were now constrained to small burrows and dark nights, to the shadows of much larger creatures. Their story does of course not end here, but for the next 170 million years our planet truely was a planet of reptiles.

[r3starttt]

🦕 fact !!! The oldest dinosaur was the Nyasasaurus, which was around 243 MILLION YEARS AGO 😱🍓

idk how much that is but must be A LOT

[dinosaurios123]

dinosaurio

DINOSAURIOS

ERA DE CRETACICO El Cretácico es un periodo geológico que duró aproximadamente 79 millones de años, iniciando hace 145 millones de años y terminando hace 66 millones de años, cuando el impacto de un meteorito en lo que ahora es la península de Yucatán ocasionó la extinción de los dinosaurios. ¿LOS PRINCIPALES DINOSAURIOS DE LA ERA CRETACICO? • Baryonyx. • Tyrannosaurus. • Tarbosaurus. • Carnotaurus. • Spinosaurus. • Velociraptor. • Deinonychus. • Oviraptor. • Parasaurolophus El dinosaurio mas antiguo del cretacico Nyasasaurus Nyasasaurus parringtoni es la única especie conocida del género extinto Nyasasaurus de arcosaurio dinosauriforme o dinosaurio basal, que vivió hace aproximadamente 243 millones de años en mediados del período Triásico, durante el Anisiense, en lo que es hoy África.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

What's the earliest known *definitive* dinosaur?

Currently, that would be Staurikosaurus!

Staurikosauus is from the Lower Santa Maria Formation, and has been dated to 233.23 million years old, making in about 1.5 million years older than other very early dinosaurs like Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus from the Ischigualasto Formation!

However, if we want to delve into questionable dinosaurs, there's a genus named Nyasasaurus that is known from very fragmentary remains, and may or may not be a dinosaur!

Nyasasaurus is from the Manda Formation in Tanzania, which seems to have been roughly 235-240 million years old, although dating is a bit shaky with this one. If Nyasasaurus is really a dinosaur it would be the oldest known, but again we don't have enough of the skeleton to be sure! The Wikipedia reconstruction of it literally looks like this, to give you an idea of how uncertain its anatomy is:

[tyrannus55]

New Edition of Dinosaurs of Africa arrived today!

New Edition of Dinosaurs of Africa arrived today!

Just IN! Glad to report that Anusuya Chinsamy–Turan has updated her popular book, carrying all the weight of the edition herself! Very glad to continue to participate in her great work adding some new artwork… obviously most of the old artwork are still there, but things like Nyasasaurus and new, updated versions of Spinosaurus have been added… This is mostly a handsome, popular book for kids…

[1dinodaily]

12/26/21 Nyasasaurus

[new-dinosaurs]

Mbiresaurus raathi Griffin et al., 2022 (new genus and species)

(Select bones and schematic skeletal of Mbiresaurus raathi [scale bars = 1 cm for most individual bones; 1 mm for “s”, an individual tooth; and 20 cm for the skeletal], with preserved bones in white, from Griffin et al., 2022)

Meaning of name: Mbiresaurus = Mbire lizard [in Greek]; raathi = for Michael Raath [South African paleontologist]

Age: Late Triassic (Carnian)

Where found: Pebbly Arkose Formation, Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe

How much is known: Skeletons of at least two individuals, one of which is nearly complete. Some isolated femora (thigh bones) from the same region may also belong to this taxon.

Notes: Mbiresaurus was an early sauropodomorph. Although sauropodomorphs famously include gigantic, long-necked quadrupeds, the earliest members of this group, including Mbiresaurus, were relatively small (less than 2 m long), bipedal dinosaurs.

Other than the controversial Nyasasaurus, which is only known from fragmentary remains, Mbiresaurus is the oldest known dinosaur from Africa, and possibly one of the oldest known dinosaurs in the world. Dinosaur fossils of similar age have otherwise only been found in South America and India. The fossil sites where such early dinosaurs were discovered were all situated at high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere during the Late Triassic, which may suggest that the oldest dinosaurs were restricted to this geographic region.

Reference: Griffin, C.T., B.M. Wynd, D. Munyikwa, T.J. Broderick, M. Zondo, S. Tolan, M.C. Langer, S.J. Nesbitt, and H.R. Taruvinga. 2022. Africa's oldest dinosaurs reveal early suppression of dinosaur distribution. Nature advance online publication. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05133-x