A skeleton of a dinosaur has been found in Egypt’s West Desert and could be a signal that there are more finds to come. The discovery is a new species of long-necked herbivore and is around the size of a city bus.
Researchers from Mansoura University in Egypt’s Nile Delta made the discovery and believe it is the first of many. Hesham Sallam, head of the excavation team as well as the Center for Vertebrate Paleontology at the University said, “As in any ecosystem, if we went to the jungle we’ll find a lion and a giraffe. So we found the giraffe, where’s the lion?”
Sallam, along with four Egyptian and five American researchers, published an article in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution” on January 29 announcing the discovery. The species has been named “Mansourasaurus Shahinae” after the team’s university as well as one of the paleontology department’s founders.
Experts believe it is a landmark find, one that could offer insight into a period for the African continent that there is not too much known about, roughly 30 million years before dinosaurs went extinct, between 70 and 80 million years ago. It is the only dinosaur from that period to have been discovered in Africa.