A Triassic Fauna from Madagascar, Including Early Dinosaurs.
The discovery of a Middle to Late Triassic ( approximately 225 to 230 million years old) terrestrial vertebrate fauna from Madagascar is reported. This fauna documents a temporal interval not well represented by continental vertebrate assemblages elsewhere in the world. It contains two new prosauropod dinosaurs, representing some of the earliest dinosaur occurrences known globally. This assemblage provides information about the poorly understood transition to the dinosaur-dominated faunas of the latest Triassic.
Flynn
JJ
Department of Geology, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL 60605, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. Département de Paléontologie et d'Anthropologie Biologique, Université d'Antananarivo, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar. Department of Geology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
Parrish
JM
Rakotosamimanana
B
Simpson
WF
Whatley
RL
Wyss
AR