Eunotosaurus africanus from the Ecca-Beaufort contact in Northern Cape Province, South Africa - implications for Karoo Basin development

The oldest land vertebrates of Gondwana are known from the Permian age Eodi cynodon Assemblage Zone of South Africa's Beaufort Group. This is the lower most terrestrial biozone of the Beaufort and is present only along the sout hwestern margin of the Karoo Basin in the Western Cape, where it lies confo rmably over the subaqueous rocks of the Ecca Group. Recent fieldwork on the Ecca-Beaufort contact south of Carnarvon, Northern Cape Province, has yiel ded tetrapods that are representative of the middle through to the upper ho rizons of the succeeding Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone. The new materials, foremost among which are specimens of the distinctive parareptile Eunotosa urus africanus, provide first positive proof for ideas that posit a younger age for the Ecca-Beaufort contact along the northern margin of the souther n tongue of the basin.