Below a Geological table at the Museum of Human Sciences in Harare shows the various life forms that emerged expressed as the months of a year. Many of the discoveries noted below were made by Geologists and Palaeontologists from the Geological Survey and the Natural History Museum, beginning with F.O. Mennel and the Geology Galleries have a fascinating collection of rocks, fossils of ancient animals (fauna) and wood (flora) meteorites, minerals, dinosaurs and Stone Age tools; these collections are well worth a visit if you are in Bulawayo

Fossil fish were found by J.C. Molyneux in 1901 in the Sebungwe area of north western Zimbabwe.   Fish scales from the Permian period (about 270 million years ago) have been washed together and now form a very hard sandstone; these extinct fish were named Namaichthys (acrolepis) Molyneux. The only other known fossil fish in Zimbabwe is a large ancient lungfish Ceratodus from the Triassic period (about 225 million years ago)

Criocephalus Gunyankaensis was a large rhinoceros sized reptile with an extremely dense and bony head. On top of the skull a canal opened out which housed a “third eye,” the pineal eye, also from the Permian period.

Tapinocephalias were small reptiles, which were also plant eaters. They had tusks in the upper jaw and a tortoise-like beak, instead of teeth, at the front of their jaw with small grinding teeth behind the tusks. They roamed Zimbabwe in the later part of the Permian period; most specimens are comprised of just the snout and upper and lower jaws.

Coelophysis (formerly Syntarsus) Rhodesiensis was a two-legged dinosaur, small and lightly built up to three metres high; it may have been warm-blooded, possibly with the addition of an insulating layer of feathers and lived in groups, or flocks, in the sand dune deserts that covered most of southern Africa in the late Triassic/ early Jurassic. They were first reported in 1963 in forest sandstones from Southcote Farm, Nyamandhlovu just west of Bulawayo by schoolboys from Northlea High School with their teacher I.K. Stewart; in 1965 Dr Mike Raath examined and catalogued them. They date from the Triassic about 220 million years ago and the tracks are fairly small, showing three toes and claws; Coelophysis Rhodesiensis is believed to have been a carnivorous beast that walked upright. Good 3D images of these creatures can be seen at the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo and the Museum of Sciences in Harare. Around twenty specimens have been found in the Zambezi Valley; they were fast moving predators with well-developed teeth and grasping hands armed with sharp claws.

Found in the same location, Mana Pools and Chitake River [Sentinel Ranch in the Limpopo Basin] were the larger (three to five metres long) Massospondylus harriesi and their close relations, Massospondylus carinatua and, that were plant eaters and widely distributed as they have also been excavated on South America and Southern China. 

The specimen bones of Massospondylus harriesi were discovered by Mr T. Mossup in 1953 at Southcote Farm, Nyamandhlovu. An excavation at Chelmer Farm in the same area revealed much of the skeleton and other remains have been found at the Chitake River, in the Mpandi sandstones of Sentinel Ranch near the Limpopo River and in the Angwa River described as site 9 below.

Vulcanodon Karibaensis was a large dinosaur found in 1969 on an island in Lake Kariba and is believed to have been an important connecting fossil between primitive Prosauropod dinosaurs of the Triassic period and later sauropod dinosaurs (Brontosaurus) of the Jurassic period.  Over 180 million years old, it was probably more than 6.5 metres long and weighed several tonnes, walked on four legs and was probably a plant eater and so far has only been found in Zimbabwe. 

News24 recently reported that the drop of water levels in Lake Kariba may not be good for power generation, but might allow for the discovery of more fossils. Steve Edwards of Musango Safari Camp has found six dinosaur fossil bed sites on the shores of Kariba dam in recent years. Almost all of his finds are from the Triassic period, dating back 150 to 250 million years. They consist of "bits of limb bones, ribs, jaws, and teeth" and other unidentified fossil bones, he said in an interview with News24. The finds have been analysed by palaeontologists from the Natural History Museum in London. One of them could even be "new to science", though that is yet to be confirmed, Edwards has been told.

"They have advised me to keep looking for a complete skull and/or a hip joint. Hip joints are important in classification of various dinosaur types," Edwards said. He has good reason to hope. In 1969, a large dinosaur named Vulcanodon Karibaensis was discovered near Musango.  It was, Edwards says, 3 metres tall, 10 metres long and weighed at least six tons. He told News24: "I am very excited about the newly-exposed lake shore, with the recent drastic lake level dropping. I am convinced we shall be finding a host of other fossils."