In the remote province of Niassa, Mozambique, a new species and genus of fossil vertebrate was found. The species is a distant relative of living mammals and is approximately 256 million years old. This new species belongs to a group of animals called synapsids. Synapsida includes a number of extinct lineages that dominated the communities on land in the Late Permian (260-252 million years ago), as well as living mammals and their direct ancestors.

A team of paleontologists from nine institutions, including Kenneth Angielczyk, associate curator of paleomammology at Chicago's Field Museum, described the anatomy of Niassodon in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. The fossil was named Niassodon mfumukasi, which means in the local language (Chiyao): the queen of Lake Niassa. The name is a tribute to the Yao matriarchal society, to the women of Mozambique and to the beauty of Lake Niassa.

The research was conducted under the auspices of Projecto PalNiassa, an international, multidisciplinary scientific collaboration that includes more than two dozen scientists from three different continents. The goal of the project is to find, study, and preserve the paleontological heritage of Mozambique.

Niassodon mfumukasi is the first new genus (and species) of a fossil vertebrate from Mozambique, and its holotype (name-bearing specimen) is a rare example of a basal synapsid that preserves the skull and much of the skeleton together.

By using micro-computed tomography it was possible to reconstruct digitally not only the bones of Niassodon but also to build a virtual model of its brain. This reveals new information on the brain anatomy of early synapsids, which is important for understanding the evolution of many features of the mammalian brain. The reconstruction of the brain and inner ear anatomy developed for Niassodon is the most detailed presented to date for an early synapsid. Using the digital data acquired in the tomographies, it was possible to isolate all individual bones preserved which allowed the researchers to create a new topological color code, codified mathematically, for the cranial bones. This code will allow the researchers to standardize the colors used in similar digital model built for other animals. The fossil can be visited in the Lourinhã Museum (Portugal), but soon will return to Mozambique, where it will become part of the collections of the National Museum of Geology in Maputo.

The specimen was collected during fieldwork in 2009 with the support of National Museum of Geology (Maputo) and was prepared at the Lourinhã Museum (Portugal), Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Oeiras, Portugal) and Southern Methodist University (Dallas); the 3D tomography was performed in DESY-HZG (Hamburg, Germany). This project was sponsored by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the National Geographic Society, and TAP Portugal.

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Note: There will be a press conference in Lourinhã (Portugal) on the December 5 at 10 am (WET) to present all details about this discovery. The press conference will take place at Auditório do Centro Cultural Dr. Afonso Rodrigues Pereira in Lourinhã. The original fossil and the research team will be present.

Image available upon request.

Contacts:

Rui Castanhinha (+351) 918 836 929

rcastanhinha@gmail.com

Ricardo Araújo (+1) 4698773006

rmaraujo@smu.edu

Luís Costa Júnior (+258) 843999170

lmcostajr@gmail.com

Kenneth Angielczyk (+1) 3126657639

kangielczyk@fieldmuseum.org

More information about Projecto PalNiassa:

http://www. palniassa. org

Title of the paper:

Bringing dicynodonts back to life: paleobiology and anatomy of a new emydopoid genus from the Upper Permian of Mozambique

Complete listo f all authors with institutional afiliations as they are in the paper: Rui Castanhinha1, 2+, Ricardo Araújo2, 3+, Luís C. Júnior4, Kenneth D. Angielczyk5, Gabriel G. Martins6, Rui M. S. Martins2, 7, 8, 9, Claudine Chaouiya1, Felix Beckmann10 and Fabian Wilde10

1 Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal.

2 Museu da Lourinhã, Lourinhã, Portugal.

3 Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, United States of America

4 Museu Nacional de Geologia, Maputo, Moçambique.

5 Integrative Research Center, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.

6 Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal. Current address: Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal.

7 Campus Tecnológico e Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Bobadela, Portugal.

8 Centro de Investigação em Materiais, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal.

9 Centro de Física Nuclear da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.

10 Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany.

+These authors contributed equally to this work