Eoabelisaurus
| Eoabelisaurus Temporal range:
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| Restoration | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Abelisauridae |
| Genus: | †Eoabelisaurus Pol & Rauhut, 2012 |
| Species: | †E. mefi
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| Binomial name | |
| †Eoabelisaurus mefi Pol & Rauhut, 2012
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Eoabelisaurus is a genus of abelisaurid theropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period of what is now South America. It was a bipedal carnivore that probably reached 6.5 metres (21 ft) in length.[1]
Discovery
In 2009, Argentinian paleontologist Diego Pol discovered the skeleton of a theropod near the village of Cerro Cóndor in Chubut Province. In 2012, based on these remains, the type species Eoabelisaurus mefi was named and described by Pol and his German colleague Oliver Walter Mischa Rauhut. The generic name combines a Greek ἠώς, (eos), "dawn", with the name Abelisaurus, in reference to the fact it represents an early relative of the latter. The specific name honours the MEF, the Museo Paleontológico "Egidio Feruglio", where Pol is active.[1]
The holotype specimen, MPEF PV 3990, was uncovered in a layer of the Cañadón Asfalto Formation, a lacustrine deposit dating from the Aalenian-Bajocian, roughly 170 million years old. It consists of a nearly complete skeleton with skull, of a subadult or adult individual.[1]
Phylogeny
Eoabelisaurus was assigned to the Abelisauridae by its describers, in the basalmost position. It would then, by forty million years, be the oldest abelisaurid species known. The describers indicated that in the cladistic analysis a difference of only a single trait would have resulted in a position lower in the evolutionary tree, basal in the Abelisauroidea. The following cladogram follows their analysis.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0660 , please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with
|doi=10.1098/rspb.2012.0660instead.
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