Paleontologists have identified the first new species of dinosaur from the island of Madagascar in nearly a decade.

The dinosaur, named Dahalokely tokana, lived about 90 million years ago. The species name is from the Malagasy language, meaning ‘lonely small bandit.’ It is estimated to have been 9 – 14 feet long.

Dahalokely belongs to a group called abelisauroids, carnivorous dinosaurs common to the southern continents. Up to this point, no dinosaur remains from 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.

When Dahalokely was alive, Madagascar was connected to India, and the two landmasses were isolated in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Geological evidence indicates that India and Madagascar separated around 88 million years ago, just after Dahalokely lived. Thus, Dahalokely potentially could have been ancestral to animals that lived later in both Madagascar and India.

“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 Dr Andrew Farke from the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, lead author of a paper describing the new species in the journal PLoS ONE.

“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 descendents?” Dr Farke said.

“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 second author Dr Joe Sertich of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

“This just reinforces the importance of exploring new areas around the world where undiscovered dinosaur species are still waiting.”

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Bibliographic information: Farke AA, Sertich JJW. 2013. An Abelisauroid Theropod Dinosaur from the Turonian of Madagascar. PLoS ONE 8 (4): e62047; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062047