Researchers discovered the new Ngwevu intloko, which had been sitting in a collection of dinosaurs known as Massospondylus, with its the new identification announced in the journal Peer. The findings will help scientists to build a better picture of what the world was like at the beginning of Jurassic, which is when dinosaurs began to dominate. Dinosaur researcher at the Museum of Natural History in London, professor Paul Barrett, said: “This is a new dinosaur that has been hiding in plain sight.
“This specimen has been in the collections in Johannesburg for about 30 years, and lots of other scientists have already looked at it.
“But they all thought that it was simply an odd example of Massospondylus.”
Ngwevu intloko were one of the earliest dinosaurs in the Jurassic period and measured nearly 10 feet.
They had a chunky body and a long, slender neck.
The creature ate mainly plants and walked on its hind legs and had a barrel-shaped body.
Ngwevu intloko means grey skull in the Xhosa language.
The fossils was collected from a farm in the Fouriesburg area in South Africa in 1978 and has been in the collection at the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI), part of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, since.
Professor Barrett said that there were many different types of dinosaurs in the Jurassic period.
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He said: “While we used to think that there was maybe one type of dinosaur, we now know there were actually six or seven sauropodomorph dinosaurs in this area, as well as variety of dinosaurs from other, less common groups.
“Some of these other sauropodomorphs were very much like Massospondylus, but a few were incredibly close to the origins of true sauropods, if not true sauropods themselves.”
Scientists believe that during the Jurassic period, there was a huge amount of volcanic activity, which marked the end of the Triassic.
Researchers now believe that many dinosaurs who were previously identified as Massospondylus may well end up being either Ngwevu intloko or even some other new species in their own right.
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Just last week a huge dinosaur fossil was dug up in France.
A scientist at the Natural History Museum of Paris, Ronan Allain, called it a “major discovery”.
He said: “This is a major discovery – I was especially amazed by the state of preservation of that femur. These are animals that probably weighed to 40 to 50 tonnes.”
The Angeac-Charente site is the biggest excavation site in Europe and offer tours to guests to show them how the fossils are excavated, cleaned and preserved.
Scientists look for isolated fragments of bone to identify whether a dinosaur fossil is close by.
Once they have selected a spot where there are many bones, the scientists dig in the hope of finding dinosaur fossils.