Skorpiovenator bustingorryi
- Quick sketch of Skorpiovenator bustingorryi
- New Theropod: Skorpiovenator bustingorryi
- Name Means: Bustingorry’s Scorpion Hunter (Manuel Bustingorry owned the land where the fossil was found, and the describers report an “abundance of living scorpions moving around the excavation.”)
- Relations: Abelisaurid theropod
- Holotype: MMCH-PV 48, an almost complete skeleton
- Location: Neuquén Province, Argentina
- Age: Late Cretaceous (~93,000,000 years old)
- Info: Skorpiovenator belongs to the Abelisauridae, a distinctive family of large carnivorous dinosaurs that prowled the Gondwanan supercontinent during the latter half of the Cretaceous period, from about 95 to 65 milion years ago. During this time, Gondwana was beginning to break up into several more familiar landmasses—South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Australia, Antarctica—and palontologists have suggested that the relationships and distribution of abelisaurids might help determine the order in which Gondwana split apart.
- In Canale et al.’s phylogeny, Skorpiovenator is most closely related to other South American abelisaurids, including Ekrixinatosaurus, Ilokelesia, Carnotaurus, and Aucasaurus. They share a suite of features that suggest that they were turning their skulls into shock-absorbers: hyperossified ornamentation atop their heads, struts of bone projecting into or sealing off parts of the orbit, and shortened muzzles. This last feature inspired a name for this abelisaur subgroup—the Brachyrostra, or “short snouts.”
- If this interpretation is correct—that South America had its own endemic radiation of short-snouted abelisaurs for the last 30 million years of the Cretaceous, this might suggest that South America was isolated from other Gondwanan landmasses with non-brachyrostran abelisaurs (places like Africa and Madagascar). However, other abelisaur phylogenies present different conclusions, and, as Canale and his coauthors point out, there are certainly other groups of Cretaceous Gondwanan animals that have their own stories to tell.
- Reference: Canale, J. I., Scanferla, C. A., Agnolin, F. L., and Novas, F. E., 2008. New carnivorous dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of NW Patagonia and the evolution of abelisaurid theropods. Naturwissenschaften published online 05 December 2008. doi: 10.1007/s00114-008-0487-4
- Elsewhere on the Web:
—Matt Celeskey.
File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs.
Bravo! Well done for a fast “sketch”.
Thanks Scott!
I second that! I am equally impressed with the fact that, for once, a Naturwissenschaften paper is NOT a secured resource! *print*
This inspires me to write a post about abelisaurs!
However, one question remains: Should not the Brachyrostra include Majungatholus? That little fella has a very short snout as well.
I agree with ScottE!
Well done, and particularly the texture and contours around the eyes. There’s a real three-dimensionality there.
THAT head belongs to a THEROPOD?!? At first glance, before I read the accompanying text, I thought it was some sort of pre-dinosaurian predator, maybe a rauisuchid or ornithosuchid from the mid-Triassic. I’m not familiar with the abelisaurs, so I’ve never seen a theropod with such a short, deep skull. What was it doing, chasing parked titanosaurs?
Zach -
I was also a little surprised at the split between Majungasaurus & Carnotaurus, but I can’t say as I’ve kept up with the latest in abelisaur phylogenies. It’s probably worth taking a look at Sampson & Krause’s Majungasaurus monograph to see what it has to say. And, it’d be great to see an abelisaur post–hop to it!
Thanks, Glendon—the ornamentation around the orbit is my favorite part of the sketch as well.
wolfwalker–I don’t know what the latest thinking is on the function of the shortened skulls of abelisaurs. The describers of Skorpiovenator hint at “shock-absorbing capabilities” in the abstract but don’t elaborate in the text. It would definitely be interesting to see what a stress analysis or bite force model of an abelisaur skull would reveal…
Hmmm…I have a paper from Gaias that says that Carnotaurus’ skull was extremely mobile, with lots of sliding joints between the bones. I’ll have to re-read that paper.
Wolfwalker–yeah, abelisaurs are bizarre. The group becomes steadily more bulldog-snouted until you hit Carnotaurus, which is just ridiculously short-faced. Even its sister genus, Aucasaurus, has a more pronounced muzzle. What makes abelisaurs really interesting, though, is that they decorated their skulls to an extent not seen in other theropods, and their arms were truly vestigal.
And Matt, to you mean the monograph detailing Majungasaurus’ skull anatomy? I have that one, and it’s really good.
Nice fella,that Skorpiovenator guy…;)