Gondwana

[gond-wah-nuh]

noun

1. a hypothetical landmass in the Southern Hemisphere that separated toward the end of the Paleozoic Era, the remnants of which make up what are now South America, Africa, Arabia, the Indian subcontinent, Australia, and Antarctica.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Gondwana¹

First recorded in 1870–75; from Sanskrit goṇḍa, the name of a Dravidian people and region in north central India + vana “forest”

Example Sentences

Earlier theories suggested that Podonominae originated in northern Gondwana before spreading northward into Laurasia, the ancient landmass that included today's Northern Hemisphere continents.

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"This fossil, which is the oldest registered find in the Southern Hemisphere, indicates that this group of freshwater animals might have originated on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana," explains Viktor Baranov, a researcher at the Doñana Biological Station and first author of the study.

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Swedish entomologist Lars Brundin first proposed in 1966 that the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana triggered this evolutionary separation.

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The analysis of the fossilized specimens, combined with genomics, will help determine whether the dispersal of these insects after the breakup of Gondwana was primarily passive or active.

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The discovery captures a vivid picture of a 112-million-year-old forest that once thrived on the ancient supercontinent Gondwana and opens new doors for exploring a long-overlooked prehistoric ecosystem.

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