Karoo therapsid fossils (mammal-like reptiles)
Terápsidos fósiles del Karoo (reptiles con rasgos de mamífero)
- Date
- 1838-1845 · confidence high
- Place
- Karoo Basin, Western Cape, South Africa
- Credited to
- Andrew Geddes Bain (discovery), Richard Owen (description) and Robert Broom (later synthesis)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
The Karoo strata preserve an almost continuous sequence of synapsid reptiles from 270-200 Ma, found by Bain from 1838 and described by Owen in 1845. They document the gradual transition towards mammals.
The dates span the discovery (Bain, 1838), the description (Owen, 1845) and Broom's great synthesis up to 1932 (The Mammal-like Reptiles of South Africa).
What it led to
- step-by-step reconstruction of the origin of mammals (jaw and middle ear)
- reference stratigraphy of southern Gondwana
- modern South African palaeontology with Broom and the Bernard Price Institute