New Dinosaur Species Narrows Fossil Record Gap In Madagascar

Madagascar's fossil record is now more complete thanks to the identification of the first new dinosaur species recorded on the island in nearly a decade.

Dahalokely tokana is believed to have around 90 million years ago, at a time when Madagascar and India were part of the same lone land mass in the middle of the ocean. Dahalokely belongs to a group of dinosaurs called abelisauroids, carnivorous dinosaurs common to the southern continents.

The creature is thought to be a carnivore that stood on two legs, and is estimated to have been between nine and 14 feet long.

Up to this point, no dinosaur remains between 165 and 70 million years ago could be identified to the species level in Madagascar-a 95 million year gap in the fossil record. Dahalokely shortens this gap by 20 million years, according to a press release by Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology.

In Malagasy, the language of Madagascar, "Dahalokely tokana" means small, lonely bandit. The name is a reference to the creature's presumed carnivorous diet, and it's isolation on a land mass in the middle of the ocean.

Scientists uncovered the lonely bandit fossils near the city of Antsiranana, in the northern part of Madagascar in 2007. Among the fossil find were ribs and vertebrae. Because these two bone types are so distinct among dinosaurs, researchers were able to identify the creature as a new species of dinosaur after noticing features in the bone, such as the shape of some cavities on the side of the vertebrae, which are not seen in any other dinosaur.

While the find has paleontologists excited, it also has them mystified, since there is still much they don't know about the Dahalokely.

"We had always suspected that abelisauroids were in Madagascar 90 million years ago, because they were also found in younger rocks on the island. Dahalokely nicely confirms this hypothesis," said project leader Andrew Farke. "But, the fossils of Dahalokely are tantalizingly incomplete-there is so much more we want to know. Was Dahalokely closely related to later abelisauroids on Madagascar, or did it die out without descendants?"

Abelisauroids roamed Madagascar during the Cretaceous period and fossils of the species have been found in Africa, South America, India and Madagascar.

"This dinosaur was closely related to other famous dinosaurs from the southern continents, like the horned Carnotaurus from Argentina and Majungasaurus, also from Madagascar," said project member Joe Sertich, Curator of Dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the team member who discovered the new dinosaur. "This just reinforces the importance of exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are still waiting," added Sertich.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.