''Karongasaurus'' (meaning "

Karonga District Karonga is a district in the Northern Region of Malawi. The district covers an area of 3,355 km.² and has a population of 365,028. It is a border district between Malawi and Tanzania, mainly occupied by the Tumbuka and Nkhonde tribes. Ot ...

" lizard) is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

titanosaur Titanosaurs (or titanosaurians; members of the group Titanosauria) were a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, including genera from all seven continents. The titanosaurs were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods, with taxa still thr ...

sauropod

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

from the Early Cretaceous. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

, ''K. gittelmani'', was described by Elizabeth Gomani in 2005.Gomani, E. M. (2005)
Sauropod Dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of Malawi, Africa
''Palaeontologia Electronica'' Volume: 8, Issue: 1, Pages: 37pp.

Discovery and naming

The holotype (specimen Mal-175), consisting solely of part of a lower

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

and twenty isolated

teeth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, t ...

, were found in the Dinosaur Beds of

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

between 1987 and 1992. ''Karongasaurus'' was the first dinosaur named in a publication that was published solely online; ''Karongasaurus gittelmani'' was named and described by Gomani (2005).Dinosaur Mailing List entry which announces the genus
/ref>

Description

The mandible of ''Karongasaurus'' is U-shaped in dorsal view and the teeth are described as slender and conical in shape, being more cylindrical than those of ''

Malawisaurus ''Malawisaurus'' (meaning "Malawi lizard") is an extinct genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur. It is known from the Dinosaur Beds of northern Malawi, which probably date to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous. The type species is ''M. di ...

''.

Classification

Gomani (2005) placed ''Karongasaurus'' within

Titanosauria Titanosaurs (or titanosaurians; members of the group Titanosauria) were a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, including genera from all seven continents. The titanosaurs were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods, with taxa still thr ...

and concluded that it may have been a possible junior synonym of ''

''.

References

Titanosaurs Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa Cretaceous Malawi Fossils of Malawi Fossil taxa described in 2005 {{Sauropodomorph-stub