Outline: a typical theropod
Asfaltovenator
"Asfalto hunter"
- Lived
- 180 to 169 million years ago, Early Jurassic to Middle Jurassic
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods
- Found in
- Argentina
- Named by
- Rauhut and Pol 2019
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
175 million years ago
Field notes
About Asfaltovenator
What it was like
Asfaltovenator was a large meat eater known from a well-preserved partial skeleton with a skull. Its bones show a mix of features found in different groups of big theropods, which makes it hard to place exactly.
It was probably an early relative of Allosaurus, and its odd mix of traits helps show how those groups first split.
Its world
It lived in the Jurassic, between about 180 and 169 million years ago, in what is now Argentina. Its bones come from the Cañadón Asfalto Formation, where it lived alongside the hunters Piatnitzkysaurus, Eoabelisaurus and Condorraptor and the long-necked Patagosaurus.
How it was found
Rauhut and Pol named Asfaltovenator in 2019, from a single find.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Allosauroidea
Sources: WikidataNamed in: O. W. M. Rauhut and D. Pol. 2019. Probable basal allosauroid from the early Middle Jurassic Cañadón Asfalto Formation of Argentina highlights phylogenetic uncertainty in tetanuran theropod dinosaurs. Scientific Reports 9:18826:1-7