Nyasasaurus

Nyasasaurus
Temporal range: ?Anisian
 ?243 Ma
↓
Life restoration of N. parringtoni
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Archosauria
Clade: Avemetatarsalia
Clade: Ornithodira
Clade: Dinosauromorpha (?)
Genus: †Nyasasaurus
Nesbitt et al., 2013
Type species
†Nyasasaurus parringtoni
Nesbitt et al., 2013
Synonyms

Nyasasaurus (meaning "Lake Nyasa lizard") is an extinct genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur from the putatively Middle Triassic Manda Formation of Tanzania that may be the earliest known dinosaur. The type species Nyasasaurus parringtoni was first described in 1956 in the doctoral thesis of English paleontologist Alan J. Charig, but it was not formally described until 2013.

Previously, the oldest record of dinosaurs was from Brazil and Argentina and dated back to the mid-late Carnian stage, about 233.23 to 231.4 million years ago. Nyasasaurus comes from a deposit conventionally considered Anisian in age, meaning that it would predate other early dinosaurs by about 12 million years.[1] However, more recent studies cast doubt to this age,[2] suggesting that the deposits may actually be Carnian in age,[3][4] which would considerably reduce this temporal gap. More reliable dating methods are needed to determine which time period Nyasasaurus truly originates from.

  1. ^ Nesbitt, S. J.; Barrett, P. M.; Werning, S.; Sidor, C. A.; Charig, A. J. (2013). "The oldest dinosaur? A Middle Triassic dinosauriform from Tanzania". Biol. Lett. 9 (1): 20120949. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0949. PMC 3565515. PMID 23221875.
  2. ^ Nesbitt, S; Butler, R; Ezcurra, M; Charig, A; Barrett, P (2020-07-08). "The anatomy of Teleocrater Rhadinus, an early avemetatarsalian from the lower portion of the Lifua Member of the Manda Beds (Middle Triassic) (project)". MorphoBank datasets. doi:10.7934/p3173. S2CID 226195075.
  3. ^ Marsicano, Claudia A.; Irmis, Randall B.; Mancuso, Adriana C.; Mundil, Roland; Chemale, Farid (2015-12-07). "The precise temporal calibration of dinosaur origins". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (3): 509–513. doi:10.1073/pnas.1512541112. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 4725541. PMID 26644579.
  4. ^ Ottone, Eduardo G.; Monti, Mariana; Marsicano, Claudia A.; de la Fuente, Marcelo S.; Naipauer, Maximiliano; Armstrong, Richard; Mancuso, Adriana C. (December 2014). "A new Late Triassic age for the Puesto Viejo Group (San Rafael depocenter, Argentina): SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating and biostratigraphic correlations across southern Gondwana". Journal of South American Earth Sciences. 56: 186–199. Bibcode:2014JSAES..56..186O. doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2014.08.008. hdl:11336/85022. ISSN 0895-9811.