#eoabelisaurus

Eoabelisaurus was a request from Triassic tier patron “bonus ducks”!

Merry day three of Dino-December! Today's animal of the day is Eoabelisaurus mefi!

Image credit: Andrey Atuchin

This species of medium-sized theropod dinosaur lived during the Early Jurassic period in what is now Argentina. As its genus name suggests, it is one of the early ancestors of the Late Cretaceous Abelisaurus, and is a member of the Abelisaurid family, which also includes dinosaurs like Carnotaurus and Majungasaurus. Eoabelisaurus grew to around 19.7 to 21.3 ft in length, though the average size for the species seems to have been close to 19 ft. Like other Abelisaurids, it had a slightly rounded head and short arms, even compared to other theropod dinosaurs. However, their arms weren't yet quite as reduced in size as some of the later species of Abelisaurids were. Unlike some of its descendants from the Cretaceous period, Eoabelisaurus lacked any horns or other ornamentations on its skull, which were used by later Abelisaurids mostly for display purposes.

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

Eoabelisaurus was first discovered in 2009 by paleontologist Diego Pol near the village of Cerro Cóndor in the Chubut Province of southern Argentina. Before this discovery, the oldest remains of Abelisaurids were a few bits of fossils from South America and Africa that dated back to the Early Cretaceous and were so fragmentary that they couldn't even be given a name. Eoabelisaurus helped show paleontologists that the Abelisaurid family dates back at least 40 million years later than previously thought! Eoabelisaurus also helped paleontologists better understand the evolution of Abelisaurid arms.

Image credit: Paleocolour

Canadon Asfalto poster

A stylized depiction of a scene from Lower Jurassic Argentina, around 178 million years ago. Cañadón Asfalto was home to a variety of dinosaurs and other animals.

252mya.com/jurassicargentina

Request of sorts by a-dinosaur-a-day: every dinosaur they've posted so far that I haven't done.

While I'm not sure I can actually complete that, I scrolled through and saw Eoabelisaurus, so I figured I might as well give it a shot.

Here's one getting screamed at by a passing Manidens for no good reason.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eoabelisaurus_restoration.png

Name: Eoabelisaurus mefi 

Name Meaning: MEF Dawn Abel's Lizard

First Described: 2012 

Described By: Pol & Rauhut 

Classification: Dinosauria, Saurischia, Theropoda, Abelisauria, Abelisauridae 

Our first Abelisaurid, Eoabelisaurus is a relatively new dinosaur discovery. It was discovered in the Cañadón Asfalto Formation in Argentina, and lived about 170 million years ago, in the Aalenian-Bajocian stages of the Middle Jurassic Period. This makes it one of the earliest Abelisaurids, even being the basalmost Abelisaurid. Eoabelisaurus is known from a nearly complete skeleton, and as such its position on the family tree is not under much dispute, though only a single trait places it in the Abelisaurids and not the Abelisauroids. It was not very large, suggesting that Abelisaurids were background theropods even while such larger animals as Allosaurus ruled the roost. It would have probably hunted the medium sized sauropods of the day. However, the fossil found might have been a subadult individual; so it could have been slightly bigger than supposed.  Its position in Argentina during the separation of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana could explain why Abelisaurids are almost exclusively found in the southern hemisphere. 

Sources: 

http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/EOABELISAURUS

http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/e/eoabelisaurus.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoabelisaurus

Shout out goes to gay-worst-enemy!