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 (meaning "Abel's lizards") is a family (or clade) of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Abelisaurids thrived during the Cretaceous Period, on the ancient southern supercontinent of Gondwana, and today their fossil remains are found on the modern continents of Africa and South America, as well as on the Indian subcontinent and the island of Madagascar. Reports based on isolated teeth show the occurrence in the Late Jurassic of Portugal,[1] and the confirmed existence of European Abelisaurids comes from the Late Cretaceous of France with Arcovenator. Abelisaurids first appear in the fossil record of the early middle Jurassic period, and at least two genera (the Moroccan Chenanisaurus and the Madagascan Majungasaurus) survived until the end of the Mesozoic era 66 million years ago.[2]
The family of Abelisauridae is characterized by very short hindlimbs and occasional skull ornamentation. In many abelisaurids, like Carnotaurus, the forelimbs are vestigial, the skull is very shallow and bony crests grow above the eyes. The average abelisaurid would have reached a length between 17 and 30 feet (5 to 9 meters) in length with a maximum size coming from an unnamed specimen from Kenya, Africa reaching a possible length of 36-39 feet (11 to 12 meters).[3] Before receiving their family name, fragmentary abelisaurid specimens were misidentified as potential South American tyrannosaurids due to a similar general morphology.[4]
Phylogeny[]
Below is a cladogram created by Tortosa et al. (2014), which includes the addition of Arcovenator and a new subfamily Majungasaurinae.
Abelisauridae |
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- ↑ (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.