''Meroktenos'' is a genus of basal

sauropodomorph Sauropodomorpha ( ; from Greek, meaning "lizard-footed forms") is an extinct clade of long-necked, herbivorous, saurischian dinosaurs that includes the sauropods and their ancestral relatives. Sauropods generally grew to very large sizes, had lon ...

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 ...

that lived during the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

period of what is now

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Sou ...

Discovery and naming

In 1959, François Ellenberger, Paul Ellenberger, Jean Fabre and Leonard Ginsburg discovered the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

, a thighbone or femur and other assorted bones, south of the village of Thabana Morena. In 1962 these were addressed in a thesis by D. Costedoat. The exact location the bones were recovered, is today unknown. In 1993, François-Xavier Gauffre assigned the remains to a second species of ''Melanorosaurus'': ''Melanorosaurus thabanensis''. The description was provisional, and in 1997 the fossil was described in more detail in a publication by Jacques van Heerden and

Peter Malcolm Galton Peter Malcolm Galton (born 14 March 1942 in London) is a British vertebrate paleontologist who has to date written or co-written about 190 papers in scientific journals or chapters in paleontology textbooks, especially on ornithischian and prosa ...

. The specific name refers to the site Thabana-Morena in Lesotho. Gauffre assumed that the specimen had been found in the

Upper Elliot Formation The Elliot Formation is a geological formation and forms part of the Stormberg Group, the uppermost geological group that comprises the greater Karoo Supergroup. Outcrops of the Elliot Formation have been found in the northern Eastern Cape, sout ...

dating from the

Hettangian The Hettangian is the earliest age and lowest stage of the Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (My ...

Sinemurian In the geologic timescale, the Sinemurian is an age and stage in the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series. It spans the time between 199.3 ± 2 Ma and 190.8 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Sinemurian is preceded by the Hettangian and is ...

and thus was about twenty million year younger than ''Melanorosaurus readi''. In 1996, he revised the date to the

Lower Elliot Formation The Elliot Formation is a geological formation and forms part of the Stormberg Group, the uppermost geological group that comprises the greater Karoo Supergroup. Outcrops of the Elliot Formation have been found in the northern Eastern Cape, sou ...

of the late Triassic in his non-published dissertation. He also referred the thighbone to a new genus and species '' Thotobolosaurus'' (now '' Kholumolumo''). This remained a non-valid ''nomen ex dissertatione'', as the name would never be published; furthermore the type material of this species does not coincide with that of ''M. thabanensis''.Gauffre F-X., 1996, ''Phylogénie des dinosaures prosauropodes et étude d’un prosauropode du Trias supérieur d’Afrique australe'' Dissertation, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle In 2016, ''M. thabanensis'' was appointed to the separate genus ''Meroktenos'' by Claire Peyre de Fabrègues and

Ronan Allain {{Short pages monitor