New information on the first vertebrate fossil discoveries from Lesotho in 1867

Abstract

In the 1870s, Richard Owen of the British Museum received a consignment of vertebrate fossils from Basutoland (Lesotho), which were sent to him by Dr Hugh Exton from Bloemfontein, and he published an illustrated catalogue of these in 1876. In 1884, he described from this collection a “Triassic mammal”– Tritylodon longaevus (an important cynodont therapsid or mammal-like reptile). New information has been found concerning the discovery, locality, stratigraphic position and discoverers of the Basutoland vertebrate fossils. The information is contained in two letters sent to Dr Alexander Logie du Toit by David Draper, in 1929. Draper revealed in these letters that the fossils were found during a raiding party by horse commandos from the Orange Free State during the Basuto War of 1867. Draper then was an 18-year-old, and he had assisted Exton with collecting vertebrate fossils from the “Upper Red Beds” (of the Karoo Supergroup) at a site whose location he pointed out on a map (the present day Thaba Tso'eu). The discovery of fossils by Exton and Draper in 1867 was the first find of any fossils in Basutoland.