Looking for Oranje: student fieldwork in the footsteps of James Kitching

​Julien Benoit, ESI

Fonda Mathalga
and Erin Lund

​In his 1977 thesis, James Kitching reported the discovery of a Triassic therocephalian (NMQR389) at a farm he called Oranje, in the Bethulie District. This therocephalian was subsequently re-identified by Dr. Christian Kammerer as a gorgonopsian. If the Triassic age of the outcrops is confirmed, this Triassic gorgonopsian would be an extremely rare occurence, as it would mean it survived the “Great Dying”, 252 million years ago. There are two farms in the Bethulie area that may correspond to Kitching’s Oranje: Orangia, near Donovan’s Kop in the Bethulie District, which is a wellknown Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone locality, and Oranje in the Phillipolis District.

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