Not to be confused with Abelisaurus
| Abelisauridae Temporal range: 170–66 Ma | |
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| An artist's illustration of Aucasaurus garridoi | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| clade: | Dinosauria |
| Superorder: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Abelisauridae Bonaprte & Novas, 1985 |
| Subgroups | |
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Abelisauridae is a family of medium to large-sized theropod dinosaurs that first appeared in Middle Jurassic and survived till Late Cretaceous. Abelisaurids are mostly known from Jurassic and Cretaceous period of Gondwana, with some being known from southern tip of Laurasia.[1][2] The genera attributed to the family are known from Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Madagascar, India, Pakistan and possibly Austrialia in Gondwana and France in Laurasia.
Abelisaurids are known to have very short forearms that lack wrist and palm bones, which were present on the arms of noasaurids, the small hindlimbs were present on forms like majungasaurines, while ones like carnotaurines had longer hindlimbs. On average, the abelisaurids are about 5 to 9 m long, however an individual from Turkana grits region of Kenya, Africa is much larger, around 11 to 12 m, some other unidentified specimens from Brazil and India could reach the same length, the fossils of large individuals from India could have been of Rajasaurus but the fossils are currently lost so it's hard to make such statements. Some early discovered abelisaurids like Indosuchus and Indosaurus, that are now nomen dubium, were identified as tyrannosaurids due to their fragmentary nature.[3][4]
Phylogeny[]
The clade diagram below is from a 2021 research on the family.
| Abelisauridae |
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Reference[]
- ↑ (2014) "Abelisauridae (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Late Jurassic of Portugal and dentition-based phylogeny as a contribution for the identification of isolated theropod teeth". Zootaxa 3759: 1–74. DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.3759.1.1. PMID 24869965.
- ↑ (2017) "An abelisaurid from the latest Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) of Morocco, North Africa". Cretaceous Research. DOI:10.1016/j.cretres.2017.03.021.
- ↑ "October/November 2013, Abstracts Of Papers, 73rd Annual Meeting". Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. 2013. http://vertpaleo.org/PDFS/0d/0d20d609-f7e6-4bb3-a0c4-765fcffde49b.pdf. Retrieved 2013-10-27.
- ↑ "Abelisaurus." In: Dodson, Peter & Britt, Brooks & Carpenter, Kenneth & Forster, Catherine A. & Gillette, David D. & Norell, Mark A. & Olshevsky, George & Parrish, J. Michael & Weishampel, David B. The Age of Dinosaurs. Publications International, LTD. p. 105. ISBN 0-7853-0443-6.