A new coelurosaurian dinosaur from the early Cretaceous of South Africa

We report the well preserved skeleton of a small theropod dinosaur, Nqwebas aurus thwazi, gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous Kirkwood Formatio n of South Africa. Nqwebasaurus has an elongate three-digit manus with a pa rtially opposable first digit, a long and slender pes with a highly reduced metatarsal IV, and preserves gastroliths (stomach stones) in its abdominal region. As a basal coelurosaurian, Nqwebasaurus pushes back the Gondwanan record of this derived group of tetanuran theropods approximately 50 millio n years. This confirms that coelurosaurians were present on the Gondwana su percontinent well before its main phase of fragmentation and supports the h ypothesis that this clade could have achieved a global distribution early i n their evolution. Nqwebasaurus is one of the most complete and best preser ved Cretaceous theropods described thus far from Africa.