Unaysaurus unaysaurid. "Unaysaurus" lived between about 225 to 200 million years ago, in the Carnian or Norian age of the late Triassic period. It was found in the south of Brazil, which at the time was connected to northwest Africa. The whole world was united into the great supercontinent of Pangaea, which was just starting to divide into Laurasia in the north, and Gondwana in the south. A U-Pb (Uranium decay) dating found that the Caturrita Formation dated around 225.42 million years ago, putting it less than 10 million years younger than the Santa Maria and Ischigualasto Formations, from where the
Gondwana Ice House to Hot House. By the end of the Ordovician "Cooksonia", a slender, ground-covering plant, became the first vascular plant to establish itself on land. This first colonisation occurred exclusively around the Equator on landmasses then limited to Laurasia and, in Gondwana, to Australia. In the Late Silurian two distinctive linages, zosterophylls and rhyniophytes, had colonised the tropics. The former evolved into the lycopods, that were to dominate the Gondwanan vegetation over a long period, whilst the latter evolved into horsetails and gymnosperms. Most of Gondwana was located far from the Equator during this period and remained a lifeless