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Searching for the earliest tetrapods in Godwana

Professor Roger Smith from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ and the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town will present his inaugural lecture.

One of the important unresolved research questions relating to the evolution of life on land is: What were the earliest terrestrial vertebrates to inhabit Gondwana?

To answer this question, Smith and a multinational team of palaeontologists have spent several field seasons looking for 300 million year old fossil bones in the hyper-arid Huab river valley of western Namibia, and in the steaming jungles of north-east Brazil.

The lecture will illustrate how fieldwork was conducted in these very different locations, report on current progress in preparing and identifying the new finds, and finish with a discussion of the evolutionary significance of these previously unknown animal communities.

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