This gives us evidence, a link and an image
Aardonyx celestae, or Celeste's Earth Claw, was unveiled at Wits University. The herbivore is believed to have roamed the region 195million years ago.
The fossil skeleton was discovered by chance on a Free Sate farm five years ago, and might help explain how dinosaurs evolved into the largest animals on land.
The fossils were named after Celeste Yates, wife of the lead researcher in the team, palaeontologist Adam Yates.
He said: "Celeste worked tirelessly through two pregnancies on these bones. [They were] covered in the hardest ceramic stone, [which] was thoroughly welded to the bone."
The fossils of the herbivore were discovered by Yates and Wits postgraduate student Marc Blackbeard.
Their find represented a rare group of dinosaurs that were in the middle of an evolutionary cycle, said Yates.
Aardonyx had features never found in combination in one animal, establishing a link between prosauropods and sauropods, which dominated the Jurassic period and were ancestors of the brontosaurus family.
Zoologist Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan said: "It's incredibly exciting. This gives us evidence, a link and an image."
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