Outline: a typical sauropod
Malawisaurus
"Malawi lizard"
- Lived
- 121 to 113 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 9 m (30 ft)
- Group
- Sauropods
- Found in
- Malawi
- Named by
- Jacobs et al. 1993
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical sauropod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
115 million years ago
Field notes
About Malawisaurus
What it was like
Malawisaurus was a titanosaur, a long-necked, four-legged plant eater, about 9 meters (30 feet) long. It had a short, tall skull, and it is one of the few titanosaurs known from part of the head.
Bony plates found with its bones suggest it may have had armor in its skin, like some of its relatives.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Malawi, in southern Africa. Its bones come from the Dinosaur Beds, where it shared the land with another titanosaur, Karongasaurus.
How it was found
Jacobs and colleagues named Malawisaurus in 1993 for bones that had first been placed in another genus. Six finds are known.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Lithostrotia
Sources: WikidataNamed in: L. L. Jacobs, D. A. Winkler, and W. R. Downs, E. M. Gomani. 1993. New material of an Early Cretaceous titanosaurid sauropod dinosaur from Malawi. Palaeontology 36(3):523-534