Asilisaurus

Kongwe live image of Asilisaurus

• Litumba Ndyosi, Tanzania

• Asilisaurus Kongwe

Asilisaurus is a fossil genus of archosaurs from the family of Silesauridae that before about 240 million years ago - lived in the south of present-day Tanzania - in the early Middle Triassic. The only previously described species and the type species is Asilisaurus Kongwe, was published the first description in 2010. In this first description at the same time the new taxon Silesauridae ( Silesaurs ) was introduced, the designation of which goes back to the 2003 discovered near Opole in Poland Silesaurus opolensis.

Asilisaurus was at the hips about 50 to 100 centimeters high, one to three feet long and weighed 10 to 30 kilograms. He had triangular teeth and a lower jaw with a beak -like tip, suggesting that he fed on plants or from a combination of plants and meat.

The name is derived from Asilisaurus Kongwe asili ( Swahili for ancestor ), sauros (Greek: σαῦρος, Lizard ) and Kongwe ( Swahili for ancient ). Asilisaurus Kongwe is the oldest fossil of a dinosaur -like animal from the Triassic, which has been found in Africa. It was in the original description in the vicinity of the bird ancestors made ​​( "within avian -line archosaurs "). From this it was deduced that the diversification of Ornithodira began before around 245 million years ago.

The Silesaurs were terrestrial vertebrates and are considered a sister group of the dinosaurs. Although the oldest so far discovered dinosaur fossils are only 235 million years old, can be derived from the Asilisaurus - finds that the independent development of the dinosaurs had already started 10 million years earlier.

Holotype of genus and species is a bezahntes fragment from the front, left portion of a lower jaw, which is kept under the archive number NMT RB9 at the National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. The fragment was discovered together with other skeletal remains, which could be assigned to at least 14 individuals of the same species. Its first description was supplemented by 12 paratypes from different body regions of several individuals.