Abelisaurus
Abelisaurus comahuensis
Pronounced:
ah-Bell-ih-Saw-russ
Diet:
Carnivore
(Meat-Eater)
Name
Means:
"Abels Lizard"
Length:
21 Feet (6.5m)
Height:
7 Feet (2.2 m)
Weight:
1.5 tons (1,360
kilos)
Time:
Late Cretaceous - 74
million years ago
Fossil
remains for this
Dinosaur have
been found in
South America
 During
the Cretaceous,
dinosaurs that lived in
the southern hemisphere
were much different from
their
northern-hemisphere
relatives. This was the
result of the separation
of the northern and
southern land masses
that began in the
Jurassic Period. The
recently discovered
large theropod
Abelisaurus comahuensis,
from Patagonia,
Argentina, looked a
little like
Albertosaurus from
Alberta, Canada,
particularly in its size
and lifestyle. But parts
of its skull led two
Argentinian
paleontologists to put
it in its own family,
the Abelisauridae. They
think it was more
closely related to the
theropod Ceratosaurus
from the Jurassic
Period.
Abelisaurus was a
medium-sized theropod (a
two-legged meat-eater)
with big jaws full of
sharp serrated teeth.
Very little of this
dinosaur has been found
- only a few pieces of
the skull. This is
enough for scientists to
realize that it is a new
type of dinosaur that,
in some ways, looked
like Tyrannosaurus rex.
This dinosaur genus,
Abelisauridae, is based
on only a few skull
fragments found in 1985
in Argentina. It seems
to have some superficial
resemblance to the head
of T. rex.
 Only
the skull of Abelisaurus
has been found, but its
body proportions were
probably similar to
other large theropods
with the same size
skulls (three feet
long). Carnotaurus had
slender legs with the
front shorter than the
back. Since Carnotaurus
probably was an early
abelisaurid, scientists
suppose that Abelisaurus
also had short front
limbs and slender legs.
Other details of its
body are unknown.
The discovery of
Abelisaurus is important
because it shed light on
many different
southern-hemisphere
theropods that are known
only from fragmentary
and puzzling material.
These remains were
difficult to identify
and were occasionally
used to suggest that
Late Cretaceous
tyrannosaurids from the
northern hemisphere were
in the southern
hemisphere. Now that
good abelisaurid
material has been
discovered and
described, scientists
have learned that many
of those remains were
abelisaurids. The
possibility of
southern-hemisphere
tyrannosaurids is less
likely. |
