Abelisauridae
Abelisauridae is a family of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Abelisaurids thrived during the Cretaceous period, mainly on the ancient southern supercontinent of Gondwana, and today their fossil remains are found on the modern continents of Africa, South America, and (western) Europe, as well as on the Indian subcontinent and the island of Madagascar. Abelisaurids possibly first appeared during the Early Jurassic based on the putative abelisaurid Eoabelisaurus from Patagonia and some genera survived until the end of the Mesozoic era, around 66 million years ago.
Skye McDavid · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- CeratosauriaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Theropoda
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At least 102 million years on record.
The record covers at least 174.7 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 66 Mya.
214 occurrences of Abelisauridae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
214 occurrences- Early Jurassicunder 1%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassic3%
- Early Cretaceous9%
- Late Cretaceous86%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
65 formations
- Maevarano Formation27
- Adamantina Formation · Bauru Group22
- Lameta Formation13
- Marília Formation · Bauru Group12
- Bajo de la Carpa Formation · Neuquén Group10
- Huincul Formation · Neuquén Group7
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The named rock units Abelisauridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 41 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Abelisauridae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Abelisauridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
500 taxa- Majungasaurus crenatissimus25 sites
- Titanosauria25 sites
- Theropoda21 sites
- Crocodyliformes15 sites
- Lepisosteidae15 sites
- Titanosauridae15 sites
- Dromaeosauridae14 sites
- Sauropoda14 sites
- Testudines14 sites
- Osteichthyes12 sites
- Abelisauroidea10 sites
- Masiakasaurus knopfleri10 sites
- Anura9 sites
- Carcharodontosauridae9 sites
- Coelurosauria9 sites
- Nodosauridae9 sites
- Chelidae8 sites
- Crocodylia8 sites
- Dinosauria8 sites
- Eusuchia7 sites
- Lithostrotia7 sites
- Bivalvia6 sites
- Brachyrostra6 sites
- Enantiornithes6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 163 sites for Abelisauridae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
125 references- Biogeography of theropod dinosaurs during the Late Cretaceous: evidence from central South America30
- Overview of the history of discovery, taxonomy, phylogeny, and biogeography of Majungasaurus crenatissimus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar18
- New furileusaurian remains from La Invernada (northern Patagonia, Argentina): a site of unusual abelisaurids abundance8
- Testing the persistence of Carcharodontosauridae (Theropoda) in the Upper Cretaceous of Patagonia based on dental evidence6
- The Cretaceous Saurischia and Ornithischia of the Central Provinces of India6
- The end of the dinosaur era in Patagonia (NatGeo Project)4
- New contributions to the knowledge of Abelisauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Ibero-Armorican landmass3
- A new geographical record of Abelisauridae (Theropoda, Dinosauria) for the Bauru Group (Upper Cretaceous)3
- Upper Cretaceous European theropod palaeobiodiversity, palaeobiogeography and the intra‐Maastrichtian faunal turnover: new contributions from the Iberian fossil site of Laño3
- The phylogeny of Ceratosauria (Dinosauria: Theropoda)3
- Theropod teeth from the Upper Cretaceous of central Spain: Assessing the paleobiogeographic history of European abelisaurids2
- Caletodraco cottardi: A New Furileusaurian Abelisaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Cenomanian Chalk of Normandy (North-Western France)2
Each of the 214 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 113 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Abelisauridae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Skye McDavid
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCeratosauria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte and Novas 1985