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 Eodicynodon Assemblage Zone of South Africa's Beaufort Group. This is the lowermost terrestrial biozone of the Beaufort and is present only along the southwestern margin of the Karoo Basin in the Western Cape, where it lies conformably over the subaqueous rocks of the Ecca Group. Recent fieldwork on the Ecca-Beaufort contact south of Carnarvon, Northern Cape Province, has yielded tetrapods that are representative of the middle through to the upper horizons of the succeeding Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone. The new materials, foremost among which are specimens of the distinctive parareptile Eunotosaurus africanus, provide first positive proof for ideas that posit a younger age for the Ecca-Beaufort contact along the northern margin of the southern tongue of the basin.