Nyana rooiwalensis

A new Elliot Formation "prosauropod" has just been published, and it's a fun one with a partial skull. I submit for your approval Nyana rooiwalensis.

Genus and Species: Nyana rooiwalensis. "Nyana" is a word with different but not entirely unrelated meanings in Xhosa and Sesotho. In Xhosa it means "son" or refers to a child, and in Sesotho it means "small" or "little", "in reference to its early ontogenetic stage but comparably large body size" (Moopen et al. 2026). (Not sure if it's intended, but the second meaning also works as an opposite nickname, like calling a big person "Tiny".) The species name refers to the discovery site, in Rooiwal (Moopen et al. 2026).

One thing I love about the recently named prosauropods from southern Africa is the authors put some effort into the names. They don't just go with "Placename-osaurus placenamensis". Yes, we have an -ensis species name here, but the genus name is a bilingual reference.

Citation: Moopen, A., J. Botha, R. Benson, K. E. J. Chapelle, P. M. Barrett, K. Dollman, and J. N. Choiniere. 2026. Nyana rooiwalensis: South Africa's earliest near-complete sauropodomorph dinosaur skull from the Late Triassic of the Eastern Cape Province. Royal Society Open Science 13(11): 261002. doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.261002.

Geography and Stratigraphy: The type and only known specimen comes from near the village of Qhemegha in Sterkspruit District, Rooiwal Tribal Area, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Stratigraphically it was found in the upper half of the Upper Triassic Lower Elliot Formation, in nodular purple to red silty fine-grained sandstone (Moopen et al. 2026).

Holotype: BP/1/8468, reposited at the Evolutionary Studies Institute of Johannesburg. It is a partial associated to articulated specimen including a partial skull, parts of the hyoid apparatus, the odd bits of bone we usually forget about where the neck meets the skull (proatlases and so on), several vertebrae (four cervicals, two dorsals and a dorsal neural arch, a sacral centrum, and two caudal centra), vertebral fragments, the ends of the left ulna, a manual phalanx and ungual, the ends of the right femur, the distal end of the left tibia, and a pedal ungual (Moopen et al. 2026).

The reconstructed skull of the Nyana rooiwalensis holotype, with the various bones given different colors. The scale bar is 25 mm, or almost 1 inch. Figure 4 in Moopen et al. (2026), which see for the full explanatory caption.CC-BY-4.0.

BP/1/8468 belonged to a young animal, with evidence for at most two growth lines and the usual skeletal features of young dinosaurs (e.g., unfused neural arches, large round orbit, unfused skull bones, etc.) (Moopen et al. 2026). Despite this, it was a big kid; the incomplete skull is 213 mm (8.4 inches) long, and if complete would have easily been longer than the largest known adult Massospondylus carinatus skull (surprisingly only 218 mm long, or 8.6 inches; I guess I always thought of Massospondylus as larger) (Moopen et al. 2026). This all works out to a healthy growth rate for an animal that evolved early in the history of sauropodomorphs. N. rooiwalensis was relatively toothy: at least 23 tooth positions are preserved in the maxilla of the type specimen, more than other Late Triassic prosauropods except for Riojasaurus (24) and Plateosaurus (25). A few parts of the skull are missing, most obviously the premaxillae, nasals, quadratojugals, and most of the dentaries, so the exact profile is not known. It seems to have been of a generally rectangular shape, like the skulls of most prosauropods.

A comparison of the type of N. rooiwalensis with skulls of various growth stages of Massospondylus and Mussaurus (not to scale). Figure 64 in Moopen et al. (2026).CC-BY-4.0.

The limb bones, being limited to a few articular ends, provide general evidence for overall size and proportions. For example, the circumference of the femur is a little smaller than that of an adult Massospondylus (Moopen et al. 2026), again getting picked on. The type individual may have been around 400 kg (880 lbs), and an adult may have been multi-ton (Moopen et al. 2026). Evidence from the circumferences of the ulna and femur indicate it was bipedal rather than quadrupedal (Moopen et al. 2026).

When analyzed phylogenetically, N. rooiwalensis has trouble making up its mind, like many juveniles, but is at least fairly consistent. Sometimes it's at the base of Massopoda, and sometimes it's a massospondylid, which is almost the same thing. In all analyses it shows a definite propensity to be found in the vicinity of Sarahsaurus aurifontinalis from the Early Jurassic of North America (Moopen et al. 2026), which is the kind of biogeographic fun that can happen with a supercontinent.

Having said all this, I can't help but wonder if it is a juvenile of an already named species. The Lower Elliot Formation is not lacking for prosauropods. Omitting the more dubious names (e.g., Euskelosaurus browni(i)), we have Blikanasaurus cromptoni, Eucnemesaurus entaxonis, Eucnemesaurus fortis, Kholumolumo ellenbergerorum, Melanorosaurus readi, Meroktenos thabanensis, Plateosauravus cullingworthi, and possibly Sefapanosaurus zastronensis. There had to have been some juveniles somewhere. Overlapping material is somewhat limited, given N. rooiwalensis is mostly a skull with some vertebrae (mostly incomplete) and limb ends and the other taxa are mostly limbs and vertebrae. Then of course there is the whole juvenile thing, guaranteed to leave a nagging question in the back of the brain as to what changes may have occurred in growth. Some of the candidates seem less likely than others, particularly the more sauropodish forms (Blikanasaurus, Melanorosaurus, Meroktenos, Sefapanosaurus). Juveniles don't typically come out as more derived than adults, so that suggests Plateosauravus is less likely as a potential adult as well. That leaves two species of Eucnemesaurus (not mentioned in Moopen et al. 2026) and our old friend Kholumolumo, and I have to say the latter is especially intriguing because it was *also* described as closely related to Sarahsaurus (Peyre de Fabrègues and Allain 2020) (even if it ends up much closer to sauropods in the Moopen et al. analysis) . Moopen et al. (2026) cite a few differences between the two: the postorbital rami of N. rooiwalensis are straight in lateral view, whereas Kholumolumo has more arcuate or semicircular rami; the anterior margin of the jugal ramus of the postorbital is more concave in Kholumolumo; and for the middle cervicals of N. rooiwalensis, the anterior articular surface is wider than tall (this seems more the case for the more anterior cervical of the two known), and the posterior articular surface is "circular with subequal dimensions", unlike Kholumolumo (Moopen et al. 2026). The middle cervical centra do appear to more squat in N. rooiwalensis, but then again it was nowhere near finishing growth. Whatever the case, it would have been nice to have a dedicated, detailed comparison section pitting N. rooiwalensis against the other Lower Elliot prosauropods. Even if the holotype does turn out to be a juvenile of a known species, it's still an interesting find worthy of description.

References

Moopen, A., J. Botha, R. Benson, K. E. J. Chapelle, P. M. Barrett, K. Dollman, and J. N. Choiniere. 2026. Nyana rooiwalensis: South Africa's earliest near-complete sauropodomorph dinosaur skull from the Late Triassic of the Eastern Cape Province. Royal Society Open Science 13(11): 261002. doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.261002.

Peyre de Fabrègues, C., and R. Allain. 2020. Kholumolumo ellenbergerorum, gen. et sp. nov., a new early sauropodomorph from the lower Elliot Formation (Upper Triassic) of Maphutseng, Lesotho. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in press: e1732996. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2019.1732996.