Pronunciation: ah-BEL-ee-SOR-us
Meaning: Abel's Lizard
Author/s: Bonaparte and Novas (1985)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Río Negro, Argentina
Discovery Chart Position: #320
Abelisaurus comahuensis
Everything we know about Abelisaurus proper we know from a single skull. It's far from complete, with much of the right side missing. But, as a general rule of thumb, one side of a theropod skull is pretty much the same as the other, and this one sported so many unique features that Bonaparte and Novas nominated it to anchor an entire family — Abelisauridae — in 1985.
Abelisaurus is often accused of having a huge head which is a bit of a liberty bearing in mind we haven't had a sniff of postcrania (non-skull skeleton). However, we can suppose that all abelisaurids shared the same basic layout; broad and short heads with incredibly deep and blunt snouts, crazy short forearms shrunk to little more than wrists and four fingers which can best be described as stumps, all attached to a stout and stocky frame with relatively short but powerful legs. All things considered, this is not a slick design. But you only need to be faster than your next meal and hailing from the Cretaceous southern continents, where lumbering sauropods were a-plenty, power was the order of the day.
Abelisaurids, like the Northern Hemisphere tyrannosaurids, had huge openings in their skull called fenestrae (windows) which acted as load-lighteners, but by comparison, they had much smaller teeth. Abelisaurus lightened the load further by snubbing the horns or lumpy skull adornments that were popular among their closest relatives. But dimples, pimples and wrinkles on the snout may have been anchor points for a gnarly keratin mask that the opposite sex probably found incredibly alluring. There's no accounting for taste.
Abelisaurus is often accused of having a huge head which is a bit of a liberty bearing in mind we haven't had a sniff of postcrania (non-skull skeleton). However, we can suppose that all abelisaurids shared the same basic layout; broad and short heads with incredibly deep and blunt snouts, crazy short forearms shrunk to little more than wrists and four fingers which can best be described as stumps, all attached to a stout and stocky frame with relatively short but powerful legs. All things considered, this is not a slick design. But you only need to be faster than your next meal and hailing from the Cretaceous southern continents, where lumbering sauropods were a-plenty, power was the order of the day.
Abelisaurids, like the Northern Hemisphere tyrannosaurids, had huge openings in their skull called fenestrae (windows) which acted as load-lighteners, but by comparison, they had much smaller teeth. Abelisaurus lightened the load further by snubbing the horns or lumpy skull adornments that were popular among their closest relatives. But dimples, pimples and wrinkles on the snout may have been anchor points for a gnarly keratin mask that the opposite sex probably found incredibly alluring. There's no accounting for taste.
Abel's lizard from ComahueEtymology
Abelisaurus is named in honor of discoverer and former director of the Cipolletti Museum; Roberto Abel, with the customery Greek suffix "sauros" (male lizard).The species epithet, comahuensis (KOH-muh-hoo-EN-sis), refers to the Comahue region of Argentina where the fossils were discovered. More often than not, place of discovery namings end with the Latin "ensis" which simply means "from". Zoobank registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:3E222D42-DB71-4BD4-B365-CBC84CE61716.
Discovery
The remains of Abelisaurus were found in "Cantera de la Pala Mécanica" — the quarry of Mr Pedro Cral — at Lake Pellegrini (Lago Pellegrini), nr Cinco Saltos, Río Negro Province, Argentina, by Roberto Abel in 1983. The titanosaurian sauropod Pellegrinisaurus was found in the same quarry. Although initially thought to be from the Allen Formation of the Margüe Group, later research concluded that Abelisaurus hails from the older Anacleto formation (previously the Anacleto member) of the Río Colorado Subgroup (previously the Río Colorado Formation) which is the youngest Formation of the Neuquén Group. To complicate matters further, locals claim that the specimen
actually came from the Sr. Fernández field,
close to Salitral Moreno, which is the Allen Formation, but that's difficult to substantiate as no field notes were taken at the time and all crew members who witnessed the find are deceased.The holotype (MC 11098, currently housed at the Museo de Cipolleti) is a partial skull measuring 856 mm long.
