• Mansourasaurus- A story from the land of Pharaohs and Dinosaurs
Prof. Dr. Hesham Sallam, Director of Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP), Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
Despite decades of exploration and numerous paleobiogeographic scenarios put forth to characterize Gondwanan and African faunas, the African Late Cretaceous fossil record remains largely unknown and hinders adequate testing of these hypotheses. Here, we report a very rare and by far the most complete nonavian dinosaur from the post-Cenomanian Late Cretaceous (Campanian 73 Ma) of the entire continent of Africa. The close phylogenetic relationship of the new Egyptian dinosaur with other Late Cretaceous Laurasian titanosaurians provides the first unambiguous evidence that clearly demonstrates affinities had indeed existed between northern African and Eurasian faunas, revealing a previously suspected but largely untested biogeographic province.
