JOHANNESBURG — Scientists at the University of Witwatersrand yesterday announced the discovery of a new species of dinosaur.

“It’s one of the big jewels South Africa has,” Dr Adam Yates of the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research told journalists in Johannesburg.

The dinosaur, Aardonyx celestae, was named after Yate’s wife, Celeste, who was responsible for removing the bones from its casing of concrete-like rock.

“She spent over two years and two pregnancies removing the rock,” said Yates.

The rock also provided the other part of the dinosaur’s name, Aardo­nyx, which means “earth claw”.

Fossils from two Aardonyx were found, one which is seven metres long and the other nine. They are an estimated 195 million years old, dating from the early Jurassic period, and were herbivores.

Due to their underdeveloped bone structure, it is believed that the fossils were from juveniles between seven and 10 years old. An adult Aardonyx may have been larger than those found.

Yates said the dinosaur shared traits of evolutionary precursors to the sauropods which dominated the Jurassic period. Sauropods were plant eaters that walked on four legs. Aardonyx, by contrast, walked on two legs but is believed to have occasionally used its forelegs to walk.

For this reason it was a “living fossil” that would have been old even among other dinosaurs.

“It is in effect a living fossil … it’s a primitive hold-over from an earlier period,” said Yates.

However, like sauropods living at the time, Aardonyx grazed by stripping vegetation from branches with its small teeth.

“Aardonyx gives us a glimpse into what the first steps toward becoming a sauropod involved …. Its tells us the change-over was not smooth, and the evolution was complicated.”

The fossils were found on a farm in the Senekal district of Free State. The farm is owned by Cobus Visser who gave his permission for the dig.

It was one of three new dinosaur species found in the area. Also found was a single tooth from a carnivorous dinosaur near Aardonyx’s remains.

Yates said that because of the number of dinosaurs found in the area, it is likely the area was the location of a “paleontological oasis”, a lush, green spot in the arid flood plain which was prehistoric South Africa.