Day at the Iziko Museum!
A Couple of months ago, I had the amazing privilege to visit the Iziko South African Museum.
I finally got around to compile all the info & photos that highlights... well, mostly prehistoric life that I find extremely interesting.
So....Ladies & Gents, grab your seats and join me on this interesting ride through one of the best museums in the country!
Uranocentrodon is an extinct genus of the family Rhinesuchidae. Known from 50 centimetres (20”) skull, Uranocentrodon was a large predator with a length up to 3.75 metres (12.3 ft). It has been synonymized with Rhinesuchus, it was also originally considered to be of Triassic age, but more recent analysis has placed its age as just below the Permian-Triassic boundary.
Title & Source: Giant Rhinesuchid Uranocentrodon senekalensis from Upper Permian of Malavi Restoration. Commons.wikimedia.org
Title & Source: Rhinesuchus. Walking with Monsters (2005)
Title & Source: Archaeopteryx, bird-like dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period around 150 million years ago (3d rendering). Shutterstock_ 1919427179
Bradysaurus was a large, early and common pareiasaur, the fossils of which are known from the Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone (Capitanian age) of the South African Karoo. Along with the similarly large dinocephalia, the bradysaurs constituted the herbivorous megafauna of the late Middle Permian Period. In life they were probably slow, clumsy and inoffensive animals, that had evolved a covering of armoured scutes to protect them against their predators, the gorgonopsians.
Jobaria (Temporal range: 167–161 Ma)
Title & Source :Jobaria was a sauropod dinosaur that lived during the middle Jurassic Perio © Philip Brownlow/Stocktrek Images.
https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/jobaria-was-a-sauropod-dinosaur-that-philip-brownlow.jpg.
Title & Source:Iziko Jobaria & Suchomimus Dinosaur Skeleton Panorama. Author: Nkansahrexford Commons.wikimedia.org
Suchomimus (Temporal range: 125–112 Ma)
Video Source: Jurassic World: Evolution
Suchomimus (meaning "crocodile mimic") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived between 125 and 112 million years ago in what is now Niger, during the Aptian to early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous period.
Image Source: Iziko Museums of SA Display.
Title & Source: Left: Nqwebasaurus Skeleton Illustration Image from de Klerk et al., (2000). Right: Nqwebasaurus thwazi. https://www.newdinosaurs.com/e
Melanorosaurus (meaning "Black Mountain Lizard") is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period. A herbivore from South Africa, it had a large body and sturdy limbs, suggesting it moved about on all fours. Its limb bones were massive and weighty, like sauropod limb bones.
I just love this little advertisement/notification from Iziko's Facebook Page! (Right)
Heterodontosaurus (Temporal range: 200–190 Ma)
I would like to thank my Awesome wife Marike, for taking the photos where I hanged out with the Dinos! :-)
Though it was a small dinosaur, Heterodontosaurus was one of the largest members of its family, reaching between 1.18 m (3 ft 10 in) and possibly 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) in length, and weighing between 2 and 10 kg (4.4 and 22.0 lb). The skull was elongated, narrow, and triangular when viewed from the side. The front of the jaws were covered in a horny beak. It had three types of teeth; in the upper jaw, small, incisor-like teeth were followed by long, canine-like tusks. A gap divided the tusks from the chisel-like cheek-teeth. The body was short with a long tail. The five-fingered forelimbs were long and relatively robust, whereas the hind-limbs were long, slender, and had four toes.
Carcharodontosaurus (Temporal range: 99–94 Ma)
Title & Source: Carcharodontosaurus promo image in Planet Dinosaur.
Carcharodontosaurus is a genus of large carcharodontosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed during the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous in Northern Africa. It is currently known to include two species: C. saharicus and C. iguidensis, which are among the largest theropods, nearly as large as or even larger than Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus, and Spinosaurus. The genus Carcharodontosaurus is named after the shark genus Carcharodon, itself composed of the Greek karchar[os] (κάρχαρος, meaning "jagged" or "sharp") and odōn (ὀδών, "teeth"), and the suffix -saurus ("lizard"). ("Shark lizard").
Sarcosuchus (Temporal range: 133–112 Ma)
Title & Source: An artist's illustration of Sarcosuchus imperator. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
Massospondylus (Temporal range: 200–183 Ma)
Title & Source: Reconstructed Massospondylus Fossil Skeleton in Iziko Museum. Commons.wikimedia.orgMassospondylus is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic. (Hettangian to Pliensbachian ages, ca. 200–183 million years ago). It was described by Sir Richard Owen in 1854 from remains discovered in South Africa, and is thus one of the first dinosaurs to have been named. Fossils have since been found at other locations in South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. Material from Arizona's Kayenta Formation, India, and Argentina has been assigned to the genus at various times, but the Arizonan and Argentinian material are now assigned to other genera.
Right: Massospondylus carinatus Skeleton Illustrations. http://www.reptileevolution.com/massospondylus.htm
Gorgonopsia (Temporal range: 265–252 Ma)
Gorgonopsia (from the Greek Gorgon, a mythological beast, is an extinct clade of sabre-toothed therapsids from the Middle to Upper Permian roughly 265 to 252 million years ago. They are characterised by a long and narrow skull, as well as elongated upper and sometimes lower canine teeth and incisors which were likely used as slashing and stabbing weapons. Postcanine teeth are generally reduced or absent. For hunting large prey, they possibly used a bite-and-retreat tactic, ambushing and taking a debilitating bite out of the target, and following it at a safe distance before its injuries exhausted it, whereupon the gorgonopsian would grapple the animal and deliver a killing bite. They would have had an exorbitant gape, possibly in excess of 90°, without having to unhinge the jaw.
Human Evolution Display & the Darwin Exhibition
up until 'modern' Homo sapiens * Mya - million years ago, kya - thousand years ago.
Title & Source: Skulls of successive or near-successive human evolutionary ancestors, up until modern Homo sapiens. https://commons.wikimedia.org/
Title & Source: Modification of Image: Huxley - Mans Place in Nature. https://commons.wikimedia.org/
The hominoids are descendants of a common ancestor.
Putative migration waves out of Africa and back migrations into the continent, as well as the locations of major ancient human remains and archeological sites (López et al.2015).
If you are looking for a scientific/scholarly book that thoroughly covers Human Evolution, I would definitely recommend getting a physical or e-book copy of this fantastic book by biological anthropologist, Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Dr. Alice Roberts.
I want to end this part of the post, with an amazing thought from the book's introduction:
Coelacanth (Temporal range: Early Devonian – Recent, 409 Ma - Present)
Image Source: Right: https://photography.nationalgeographic.com/
The Coelacanths are fish belonging to the order Actinistia that includes two extant species in the genus Latimeria: the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast of Africa, and the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis). The name "coelacanth" originates from the Permian genus Coelacanthus, which was the first scientifically named coelacanth.
In the Late Devonian vertebrate speciation, descendants of pelagic lobe-finned fish—like Eusthenopteron—exhibited a sequence of adaptations: Panderichthys, suited to muddy shallows; Tiktaalik with limb-like fins that could take it up onto land; and Early tetrapods in weed-filled swamps, such as Acanthostega which had feet with eight digits and Ichthyostega with limbs. Descendants also included pelagic lobe-finned fish such as the coelacanth species. Title & Source: Late Devonian lobe-finned fish and amphibious tetrapods. https://commons.wikimedia.org.
Coelacanths follow the oldest-known living lineage of Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish and tetrapods), which means they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (which includes amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) than to ray-finned fish. They are found along the coastline of Indonesia and in the Indian Ocean. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a critically endangered species.
The oldest known coelacanth fossils are over 410 million years old. Coelacanths were thought to have become extinct in the Late Cretaceous, around 66 million years ago, but were discovered living off the coast of South Africa in 1938. The coelacanth was long considered a "living fossil" because scientists thought it was the sole remaining member of a taxon otherwise known only from fossils, with no close relations alive, and that it evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago. However, several more recent studies have shown that coelacanth body shapes are much more diverse than previously thought.
Check out Iziko Museum's Facebook Page & Website for more info & interesting photos!
You made it to the end, Thank you for reading through!
Hope you enjoyed the info, photos & this journey with us! :-)
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