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Jakapil, Early CretaceousCandeleros Formation, Argentina · named 2022
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Jakapil

"shield bearer"

Lived
113 to 110 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
Diet
Herbivore
Group
Early armored dinosaurs
Found in
Argentina
Named by
Riguetti et al. 2022

Where its fossils were found

The evidence

Today

1 find

110 million years ago

Map: C. R. Scotese, PALEOMAP

Habitat

Jakapil lived among shifting sand dunes in an arid to semi-arid landscape in Argentina. The Candeleros Formation also contains Buitreraptor, Giganotosaurus and Andesaurus.

Field notes

About Jakapil

What it was like

Jakapil was a small armored plant eater that probably walked on its hind legs. Rows of bony plates protected its back, and it had a short, deep face with leaf-shaped teeth.

It belongs to an early branch of the armored dinosaurs, the group that also led to the stegosaurs and ankylosaurs. Most members of that early branch had died out long before, so Jakapil shows that some lasted far longer than scientists expected.

Its world

It lived about 113 to 110 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now Argentina. Its bones come from the Candeleros Formation, where giant sauropods such as Andesaurus and Limaysaurus lived, along with the huge predator Giganotosaurus and the small hunter Buitreraptor.

How it was found

Riguetti and colleagues named Jakapil in 2022 from one partial skeleton. Its name comes from a local language of the region, not from Greek or Latin.

Field gallery

More views of Jakapil

Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.

Jakapil in its habitat, photo 1

1 of 3

Lived alongside

Found in the same rock formations

A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Jakapil.

The evidence

The science behind Jakapil

Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.

From its own fossils

  • A partial skeleton preserves a nearly complete lower jaw, deep toward the back with a large ridge along its underside, and leaf-shaped teeth worn where upper and lower teeth met.
  • Its armor includes flat plates, small bony disks and pointed elements. A separate find of cone-shaped plates has also been referred to Jakapil.
  • Its upper arms were slender and small, and one claw from the skeleton is blunt and hoof-like.

Borrowed from relatives

  • Missing skull outlines are restored by comparison with Scelidosaurus.
  • Scutellosaurus provides a comparison for restoring an early armored dinosaur that probably walked on its hind legs.

Still unknown

  • The exact arrangement of its armor across the body.
  • Its full-grown size and complete skull shape.
  • Whether it was an early armored dinosaur at all. Its describers and a later study place it there, but other researchers have suggested it may be an armored relative of horned and dome-headed dinosaurs, or another kind of armored plant eater.

Discovery timeline

  1. 2021Close relativeBreeden et al.
  2. 2022Named itRiguetti, Apesteguía & Pereda-Suberbiola
  3. 2023Family treeRaven et al.
  4. 2026Family treeCross et al.

Key papers

The research behind what we know of Jakapil

Close relatives

Other members of Thyreophoroidea

Sources: Wikidata