Open Paleo

Musankwa

Barrett et al., 2024

Named for the houseboat 'Musankwa' that served as the paleontologists' laboratory and home during fieldwork; 'musankwa' is a Tonga word meaning 'boy close to marriage'.

227.3–205.7 million years ago Norian, Late Triassic
Late Triassic stages

Musankwa is an extinct genus of plateosaurian 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.

Under dispute

Every analysis to include Musankwa sanyatiensis has placed it differently. Barrett and colleagues (2024) recovered it as the earliest-branching massopodan, sister to Riojasauridae and all later-branching massopodans. Wang and colleagues (2025) instead recovered it in a trichotomy with Macrocollum and Pradhania at the base of Massopoda, and Barrett and colleagues (2026) recovered it as the sister taxon of the sympatric Musango within Unaysauridae, which falls outside Massopoda in their strict consensus but within it in some of their most-parsimonious trees. Support is weak throughout: the Musango–Musankwa pairing rests on a single highly homoplastic astragalar character at a Bremer support of 1, and its describers caution that the relationship is unlikely to prove robust as new material comes to light. Plateosauria is the least-inclusive clade that all three analyses accept.

Diagnosis

  1. Prominent posterior tubercle on proximal femur margin
  2. Proximal femur shaft anteroposteriorly expanded and swollen at anterior trochanter level
  3. Fourth trochanter base straight, centered on posterior femoral surface, confined to proximal half of shaft
  4. Fibular condyle separated from cnemial crest by distinct sulcus

Species

Musankwa sanyatiensis Barrett et al., 2024

Type species

Named for the Sanyati River, which flows into Lake Kariba near the type locality in Zimbabwe.

Holotype
NHMZ 2521 , Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe
Material
Partial right hind limb: complete femur, tibia, and astragalus
Horizon
Pebbly Arkose Formation, Norian, Late Triassic , 227.3–205.7 million years ago
Locality
Spurwing East Palaeosol, Spurwing Island, Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe

References

  1. Barrett, P.; Chapelle, K.; Sciscio, L.; Broderick, T.; Zondo, M.; Munyikwa, D.; Choiniere, J. (2024). A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic of the Mid-Zambezi Basin, Zimbabwe. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 69. Polska Akademia Nauk Instytut Paleobiologii (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences). doi:10.4202/app.01100.2023 barrett2024a
  2. Wang, Y. M.; Zhang, Q. N.; Wang, Y. C.; Xu, H.; Chen, J.; Feng, Z.; Xu, X.; Wang, T.; You, H. L. (2025). A new Early Jurassic dinosaur represents the earliest-diverging and oldest sauropodomorph of East Asia. Scientific Reports 15(1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1038/s41598-025-12185-2

    Recovered Musankwa with Macrocollum and Pradhania at the base of Massopoda.

    wang2025a
  3. Barrett, P. M.; Botha, J.; Sciscio, L.; Stuart, B. P.; Lovegrove, J.; Munyikwa, D.; Zondo, M.; Broderick, T. J.; Edwards, S. F.; Mbambo, E.; Chapelle, K. E. J.; Dollman, K. N.; Tolan, S.; Choiniere, J. N. (2026). A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Pebbly Arkose Formation (Upper Triassic: Norian) of Kariba, Zimbabwe. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 24(2): 2678610. Informa UK Limited. doi:10.1080/14772019.2026.2678610

    Recovered Musankwa as the sister taxon of Musango within Unaysauridae.

    barrett2026a