240-Million-Year-Old Fossil Relative of Mammals Rewrites Dinosaur Timeline

Researchers at the University of Bristol identified Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, a plant-eating synapsid from Tanzania that lived about 240 million years ago. The genus was previously known only from South America, suggesting the Tanzanian rocks are younger than thought and challenging the status of local fossils as the oldest known dinosaurs.

• New species named Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, dated to about 240 million years ago
• First confirmed record of the genus Dinodontosaurus outside South America
• Tanzanian and South American fossil-bearing rocks are of equivalent age
• South American sequences may be up to 10 million years younger than South African ones