A group of international researchers has discovered for the first time in Mozambique and Zambia fossils of Dicinodon angielczyki, an ancestor of mammals.

The Portuguese paleontologist who is part of the team, Ricardo Araújo, said that the species had already been found in Tanzania, and "this is the first time we have discovered this species in Mozambique and Zambia."

This discovery of the ancestor of mammals came as part of an expedition in 2019 in Graben Metangula, in the northern province of Niassa.

"We are now able to understand, with much more certainty, the ages between the various sedimentary basins of East Africa, namely the basins of Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia," said the researcher from the Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at the Instituto Superior Técnico.

For the paleontologist, scientists point to the hypothesis that it is a "species restricted to East Africa, because not only is it not reported elsewhere, but it has a distinctive skull feature that is not found in other species and that is derived from the type of food they ate" in that region.

Published last week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the scientific article is also signed by the Mozambicans Keila Cumbane and Zanildo Macungo, from the National Museum of Geology of Mozambique; Americans Christian Kammerer (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences) and Kenneth Angielczyk (Chicago Museum of Natural History).

The project is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation.