JOHANNESBURG -- The first dinosaur fossil to be found in Namibia has been uncovered by paleontologists in that country's Waterberg National Park, it was announced here Thursday. The six meter (20 foot) fossil is from one of the oldest known dinosaurs, massospondylus, a plant eating animal that roamed southern Africa and North America during the early Jurassic period, paleontologist Bruce Rubidge told AFP. Rubidge, a professor at the University of Witwatersrand here, helped identify the skeleton after it was discovered in 208-million-year-old sandstone by geologists from the universities of Wurzburg in Germany and Liverpool in England. He said the scientists had dubbed Waterberg Park, in the north of Namibia, "Jurassic Park" as dinosaur prints had earlier been discovered in exposures of dune-sands higher up in the park.

"The fossil is similar to skeletons found in South Africa, Zimbabwe and North America," Rubidge said. Apart from helping scientists determine the date of the rocks in Waterberg Park, he said, the discovery -- made in May last year but only announced Thursday -- further added credence to the Gondwanaland theory. Scientists believe the continents were once all joined in a gigantic land mass they have dubbed Gondwanaland. "Sequences studied and understood in South Africa and in the Americas, but not yet well correlated, can now be pieced together more accurately," Rubidge said.

"The find marks one achievement in a major cooperative scientific research effort between the German, British and South African universities and Namibian institutions," he added. The announcement of the discovery was timed to coincide with next week's meeting of the Paleontological Society of Southern Africa in the Namibian capital of Windhoek. (AFP)