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Post by thesporerex on Jan 31, 2014 17:09:09 GMT
Acrovenator escotae (Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S075339691300089X?cc=y)Abstract:(Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S075339691300089X?cc=y)"The Abelisauridae are a family of mainly Cretaceous theropod dinosaurs with a wide distribution across the Gondwanan land masses. Although their presence in Europe was reported twenty-five years ago, it has often been considered as controversial largely because of the incompleteness of the available specimens. We report here the discovery of well-preserved abelisaurid material, including a highly diagnostic braincase, at a Late Cretaceous (late Campanian) locality in the Aix-en-Provence Basin, near the eponym city in south-eastern France. A new abelisaurid taxon is erected, Arcovenator escotae gen. nov., sp. nov., on the basis of cranial and postcranial material. A phylogenetic analysis reveals that the new Abelisauridae from Provence is more closely related to taxa from India and Madagascar than to South American forms. Moreover, Genusaurus, Tarascosaurus and the previous Late Cretaceous discoveries are identified as basal abelisaurids. Contrary to previously proposed palaeobiogeographical models of abelisaurid evolution, the presence of the new taxon in Europe suggests that Europe and Africa may have played a major role in abelisaurid dispersal, which apparently involved crossing marine barriers."
The fossils:
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Post by Hatzegopteryx on Jan 31, 2014 17:19:01 GMT
According to the only image I have seen, the species is around the ~5-6 metre range, so I would say ~500kg is a very rough maximum weight guess.
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Post by thesporerex on Jan 31, 2014 17:22:48 GMT
According to the only image I have seen, the species is around the ~5-6 metre range, so I would say ~500kg is a very rough maximum weight guess. I would scale down majungasaurus to that length range because its apparently related.
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Post by Hatzegopteryx on Jan 31, 2014 18:33:13 GMT
Yeah, but I am very sure it is not over 500kg.
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Post by thesporerex on Jan 31, 2014 20:54:09 GMT
Yeah, but I am very sure it is not over 500kg. what figures did you scale down from?
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Post by Hatzegopteryx on Jan 31, 2014 21:40:07 GMT
Yeah, but I am very sure it is not over 500kg. what figures did you scale down from? It's pretty rough, I didn't scale it yet. I only guessed its mass from what I know about theropod average mass in relation to its length. And yes, it is closely related to Majungasaurus, being in the Majungasaurinae and thus closely related to Indosaurus and the Pourcieux abelisaurid. Here is Arcovenator's skull and a reconsturction of most of it: And here's a Majungasaurus skull: They are fairly comparable, guess we already know what to scale from.
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Post by thesporerex on Jan 31, 2014 21:46:43 GMT
Ye, scaling down from majungasaurus isn't a bad idea. It depends on what the figures you use for scaling down though.
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Post by Hatzegopteryx on Jan 31, 2014 21:48:36 GMT
Yeah, I am trying to be pretty precise.
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