The newly-discovered fossil go back to the Norian age of the Late Triassic date, some 206 million years back.

It comes from a formerly unidentified member of Massopoda, a big group of sauropodomorph dinosaurs that lived throughout the Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous dates.

“Among the Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrate groups, Sauropodomorpha represents among the most effective dinosaurian clades, as it turned into one of the most plentiful and dominant herbivore parts of both the Late Triassic and the Jurassic continental paleoecosystems with a nearly international circulation, spatially covering from Antarctica to Greenland,” stated Dr. Alessandro Lania from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and his coworkers from Switzerland.

“The origin of sauropodomorphs go back to the early Late Triassic of Gondwanan continents with the earliest agents found in Brazil, Argentina, southern Africa, and North America.”

“Based on the South American fossil record, which supplies among the most thorough understandings of the early development of Sauropodomorpha, a quick radiation and diversity happened in a timeframe of roughly 30 million years, moving from a restricted variety of family trees defined by a little body size, bipedal mobility and carnivorous/faunivorous dietary practices to a wide variety of brand-new sauropodomorphs throughout the Norian-Rhaetian accounting for medium-to-large size body strategies, start of quadrupedality and acquisition of herbivorous diet plan.”

“Additionally, this remarkable boost in the sauropodomorph paleobiodiversity of southern Pangea at Norian times is additional confirmed by the introduction of brand-new primary family trees, such as Massopoda and Sauropodiformes, along with by a significant divergence in the morphological variation, which is as a result shown in a growth of the occupied morphospace provided the advancement of unique physiological functions.”

The partly total skeleton of the brand-new massopodan sauropodomorph was discovered in 2013 in the uppermost fossiliferous horizon of the Gruhalde Member (Klettgau Formation) in the Gruhalde Quarry in Frick, Canton Aargau, Switzerland.

“The Klettgau Formation is among the most comprehensive stratigraphic successions of the Late Triassic in Europe, including a lithologically heterogenous series transferred over an extended timeframe of 26-30 million years, from the Early Carnian to the Late Rhaetian,” the paleontologists stated.

“Outcropping in lots of areas throughout Switzerland, the Klettgau Formation records a non-continuous series of variegated playa sediments with fluvial and marine impact, portraying different lateral paleoenvironmental shifts over the whole stratigraphic area.”

The brand-new specimen represents the very first non-Plateosaurus sauropodomorph from the Canton Aargau and the 4th Late Triassic non-sauropodan sauropodomorph of Switzerland.

“The osteological examination combined with morphological contrasts unwinded a mosaic craniomandibular anatomy that integrates functions normal of non-massopodan plateosaurians and massopodan sauropodomorphs, a condition shown the mid-to-late Norian massospondylid Coloradisaurus brevis from Argentina,” the scientists stated.

According to the authors, this dinosaur is the very first non-sauropodiform massopodan from Laurasia.

“Remarkably, the resulting macroevolutionary situation opens a possible hypothesis supporting a European origin for the Early Jurassic massopodans from Asia throughout the Late Triassic, although more proof is needed to support it,” they stated.

“Moreover, the fossil increases both the craniodental variation and the paleobiodiversity of Norian sauropodomorphs from Laurasia, with the latter being similar to those from Gondwana, particularly South America and Africa.”

The group’s paper was released this month in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology

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A. Lania et al2025. Craniomandibular osteology of a brand-new massopodan sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) from the Late Triassic (newest Norian) of Canton Aargau, Switzerland. Swiss J Palaeontol 144, 39; doi: 10.1186/ s13358-025-00373-6