Musankwa sanyatiensis
Musankwa is an extinct genus of massopodan sauropodomorph dinosaurs from the Late Triassic (Norian) Pebbly Arkose Formation of Zimbabwe. The genus contains a single species, Musankwa sanyatiensis, known from an incomplete hindlimb. Musankwa represents the fourth dinosaur genus to be named from Zimbabwe.

P. M. Barrett, K. E.J. Chapelle, L. Sciscio, T. J. Broderick, M. Zondo, D. Munyikwa, and J. N. Choiniere · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- MusankwaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida
Time the record covers
At most 32 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 205.7 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Musankwa sanyatiensis on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Late Triassic100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Pebbly Arkose Formation · Karoo Group1
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The named rock units Musankwa sanyatiensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Musankwa sanyatiensis and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Musankwa sanyatiensis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
1 taxon- Phytosauria1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Musankwa sanyatiensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Musankwa sanyatiensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- P. M. Barrett, K. E.J. Chapelle, L. Sciscio, T. J. Broderick, M. Zondo, D. Munyikwa, and J. N. Choiniere
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Musankwa sanyatiensis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Musankwa”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMusankwa through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Barrett et al. 2024