--- description: Scientists have announced the discovery of a new dinosaur, which they've named Sefapanosaurus. title: Meet the New Dinosaur That Scientists Just Discovered image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d122c71ca9a60f/698858c2a988ca19e46b33d5/sefapanosaurus.jpg?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Science](/section/science/) ## Science Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Paleontology](/tag/paleontology/) ## Paleontology Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Meet the New Dinosaur That Scientists Just Discovered by [Alexandra Sifferlin](/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 27, 2015 1:19 PM CUT  University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg by [Alexandra Sifferlin](/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 27, 2015 1:19 PM CUT Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur that they’ve named _Sefapanosaurus_. On Wednesday, researchers announced that palaeontologists discovered a new 200 million-year-old dinosaur from South Africa. The catch? The bones had actually been found in the 1930s and were hiding in plain sight in the large fossil collection at the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) at Wits University. Researchers had previously thought the remains were from a dinosaur called _Aardonyx_, but upon further study, they learned it was actually an entirely different dinosaur. This new dinosaur is believed to be a medium-sized sauropodomorph, which is a group that gave rise to the familiar long-necked dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era, the researchers say.The researchers [published](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zoj.12247/abstract "undefined") their findings in the _Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society_. “Sefapanosaurus constitutes a member of the growing list of transitional sauropodomorph dinosaurs from Argentina and South Africa that are increasingly telling us about how they diversified,” study author and Argentinian palaeontologist Alejandro Otero [said in a statement](http://www.wits.ac.za/files/4m9h8%5F812021001435141734.pdf "undefined"). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/"},"headline":"Meet the New Dinosaur That Scientists Just Discovered","datePublished":"2015-06-27T13:19:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:36:22.368Z","description":"The bones were hidden in plain sight","url":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/","keywords":["Paleontology","South Africa","Discovery"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d122c71ca9a60f/698858c2a988ca19e46b33d5/sefapanosaurus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d122c71ca9a60f/698858c2a988ca19e46b33d5/sefapanosaurus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"sefapanosaurus","caption":"sefapanosaurus","creditText":"University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/paleontology/","name":"Paleontology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/","name":"Meet the New Dinosaur That Scientists Just Discovered"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Sights And Sounds Of The Solar System","description":"NASA's Deep Space Network has been receiving images and sounds from space probes for 50 years.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/35PDyDwj/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-01-06T15:17:55.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/35PDyDwj.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/","duration":"PT3M47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3938934/new-dinosaur/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```