This high plain of southern africa is famous for it’s Permian fossils (260 million years ago) and lower Triassic (230 million years ago). Unlike Texas, where these fossils are of reptiles, those of the Karoo are of the mammal-like reptiles, those strange creatures that form an evolutionary bridge between the two families of animals. Also found here are extensive remain of cotylosaurs, a very primitive type of reptile dating from the Carboniferous. Specimens include Pareiasaurus an archaic reptile and Cynognathus a carnivorous mammal-like reptile.