| Rahiolisaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian 70–66Ma | |
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| An artist's illustration of Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Abelisauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Majungasaurinae |
| Genus: | †Rahiolisaurus Novas et al., 2010 |
| Species: | †R. gujaratensis |
| Binomial name | |
| Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis Novas et al., 2010 | |
Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis is an extinct genus of abelisaurid theropod dinosaur that lived during Late Cretaceous period in Lameta Formation of India. The type and the only known species is R. gujaratensis.[1]
Description[]
Skeletal Reconstruction of Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis.
It was described in 2010 and can be distinguished from Rajasaurus by its more slender build. It is known from a fossil bed containing seven different individuals at various stages of growth. It was up to 8 metres (24 ft) long and weighed about 2 tons. But Delcourt in 20117 revised the estimates around 6-7 metres, where the smallest specimen was 6.22 metres long and the largest was 6.75 metres long. It is also hinted that it was a social creature as all known fossil of the dinosaur are known from the same region, but since the braincase isn't preserved in any known specimen, such hypothesis cannot be applied and are hypothetical.
Discovery[]
Fossils of the specimen (1).
The known specimens of Rahiolisaurus were discovered between 1995-97 near the Rahioli village, the species are known from fossils of several vertebrae, hindlimbs, pelvic, etc. That vary in sizes, which shows the ontogenetic traits within the genus.
Fossils of the specimen (2).
In 2010, Novas and his colleagues describe all of the materials represents a single genus and species of abelisaurid dinosaur and named it Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis, where the genus name "Rahioli" is after Rahioli village, "saurus" is the greek word for lizard and the species name "gujaratensis" is after the Gujarat state of India, where the village is located.
Classification[]
Life restoration of Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis by Dadinonerdboi.
Rahiolisaurus was initially classified as a majungasaurine abelisaurid in 2010. In 2018, Dahalokely was classified as the sister taxa of Rahiolisaurus still under the subfamily, majungasaurine. In 2021, both the Dahaloky and Rahiolisaurus were classified as basal carnotaurine, still being the sister taxa of each other. In 2025, Rahiolisaurus was again reclassified as a majungasaurine, this time being the sister taxa to Vitosaura.
References[]
- ↑ Novas, Fernando E., Chatterjee, Sankar, Rudra, Dhiraj K., Datta, P.M. (2010). "Rahiolisaurus gujaratensis, n. gen. n. sp., A New Abelisaurid Theropod from the Late Cretaceous of India." in: Saswati Bandyopadhyay (ed.): New Aspects of Mesozoic Biodiversity. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg. pp. 45–62. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-10311-7.