Outline: a typical theropod
Eoabelisaurus
"dawn Abelisaurus"
- Lived
- 184 to 175 million years ago, Early Jurassic
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Abelisauridae
- Found in
- Argentina
- Named by
- Pol and Rauhut 2012
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
180 million years ago
Field notes
About Eoabelisaurus
What it was like
Eoabelisaurus was a predator and the oldest known member of the abelisaurids, the family of Carnotaurus. Its arms were already very short, with a stubby forearm, a trait that became extreme in later abelisaurs.
Its world
It lived in the Jurassic, in what is now Argentina. It comes from the Cañadón Asfalto Formation, where it shared the land with the predators Piatnitzkysaurus and Condorraptor and the sauropods Patagosaurus and Bagualia.
How it was found
Pol and Rauhut named Eoabelisaurus in 2012, from a nearly complete skeleton. It showed that abelisaurs had appeared tens of millions of years earlier than once thought.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Abelisauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: D. Pol and O. W. M. Rauhut. 2012. A Middle Jurassic abelisaurid from Patagonia and the early diversification of theropod dinosaurs. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 279:3170-3175