Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus was a predatory dinosaur. It lived 70 million years ago on the Cretaceous period. It was a large theropod which lived in South America. Although there is only one well-preserved skeleton, it is one of the best-understood theropods from the southern hemisphere. The skeleton, found in 1984, was uncovered in the Chubut Province of Argentina.
| Carnotaurus | |
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| Carnotaurus sastrei. | |
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| Genus: | Carnotaurus Bonaparte, 1985
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Carnotaurus is a member of the Abelisauridae, a group of large theropods. They lived only in the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana. They were the dominant predators of the later Cretaceous of Gondwana. They occupied the ecological niche filled by the tyrannosaurids in the northern continents.[1]
Description
Carnotaurus was a lightly built, bipedal predator, 7.5–8 m (24.6–26.2 ft) in length and weighing 1.3–2.1 metric tons (1.4–2.3 short tons; 1.3–2.1 long tons). As a theropod, Carnotaurus was highly specialized and distinctive. It had thick horns above the eyes, a feature not seen in other carnivorous dinosaurs, and a very deep skull sitting on a muscular neck. Also, it had small, vestigial forelimbs, smaller even than those of Tyrannosaurus.
The remains include skin impressions showing a mosaic of small, non-overlapping scales about 5 mm in diameter. The mosaic was interrupted by large bumps that lined the sides of the animal, and there are no hints of feathers.[2][3]
The distinctive horns and muscular neck may have been used in fighting rivals of its own species. Rivals may have fought with quick head blows, by slow pushes with the upper sides of their skulls, or by ramming each other head-on, using their horns as shock absorbers. The feeding habits of Carnotaurus remain unclear. Some studies suggest the animal was able to hunt down very large prey such as sauropods, while other studies find it preyed mainly on relatively small animals. Carnotaurus was well adapted for running and was possibly one of the fastest large theropods.
Palaeoecology
The animal lived in an environment of estuaries, tidal flats or coastal plains.[4] The climate would have been seasonal with both dry and humid periods. The most common vertebrates collected include lungfish, turtles, crocodiles, plesiosaurs, dinosaurs, lizards, snakes and mammals. Turtles are represented by at least five taxa. In 2011, the discovery of a new enantiornithine bird from the La Colonia Formation was announced.[5]
Media
It appears in the movie Dinosaur (2000), when two Carnotaurus were killing other species of Iguanodon, Parasaurolophus, Pachyrhinosaurus or Stygimoloch. And in Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom (2018), when fighting a Sinoceratops and gets taken down by the iconic "Rexy" the Tyrannosaurus rex. Later on in the movie, it escapes the "Lockwood Manor" in Michael Crichton's book "The Lost World" (1995)
Carnotaurus Media
Mount of Carnotaurus at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Scale diagram comparing Carnotaurus to a human
Skull in multiple views, with details of the skin structures inferred, and the right frontal horn
Schematic diagram of reconstructed skull
Life reconstruction of Carnotaurus sastrei taking a 2021 paper about the animal's skin impressions into account.
Sixth tail vertebra of the holotype in A) side, B) front and C) top views, with arrows indicating the highly modified caudal ribs
Shoulder region and arms; hands shown flexed beyond their ability to move in life
Bones of the hand, as interpreted by Ruiz and colleagues (2011)
Skin impressions from the tail
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References
- ↑ Candeiro, Carlos Roberto dos Anjos & Martinelli, Agustín Guillermo. 2005. Abelisauroidea and Carchardontosauridae (Theropoda, Dinosauria) in the Cretaceous of South America. Paleogeographical and geocronological implications. Uberlândia Sociedade de Naturaleza 17 (33): 5–19.
- ↑ Carrano, Matthew T. & Sampson, Scott D. 2008. The phylogeny of Ceratosauria (Dinosauria: Theropoda). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 6 (2): 183–236. [1]
- ↑ Bonaparte, José F. et al 1990. Carnotaurus sastrei Bonaparte, the horned, lightly built carnosaur from the Middle Cretaceous of Patagonia. Contributions in Science (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) 416. [2] Archived 2010-07-21 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Pascual, Rosendo et al 2000. A highly derived docodont from the Patagonian late Cretaceous: evolutionary implications for Gondwanan mammals. Geodiversitas 22 (3): 395, 399–400.
- ↑ Lawver, Daniel R. et al 2011. A new enantiornithine bird from the Upper Cretaceous La Colonia Formation of Patagonia, Argentina. Annals of Carnegie Museum 80 (1): 35–42. [3]