Carnotaurinae
Brachyrostra is a clade within the theropod dinosaur family Abelisauridae. It includes the famous genera Carnotaurus, Aucasaurus, potentially Abelisaurus as well as their close relatives from the Cretaceous Period of Argentina and Brazil plus Caletodraco from France. The group was first proposed in an analysis conducted by Juan Canale and colleagues in 2008. They found that all South American abelisaurids described up to that point grouped together as a sub-clade of Abelisauridae, which they named based on the relatively unusual shape of their skulls. They defined the clade Brachyrostra as "all the abelisaurids more closely related to Carnotaurus sastrei than to Majungasaurus crenatissimus."

Carnotaurus, Chlupáč Museum, Prague-2.jpg : Czech Wikipedia user Packa derivative work: Hic et nunc · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- AbelisauridaePBDB
- 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 34 million years on record.
The record covers at least 106.3 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 110.1 Mya to 66 Mya.
35 occurrences of Carnotaurinae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
35 occurrencesThese 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
9 formations
- Maevarano Formation25
- Lameta Formation2
- Marnes bleues Formation1
- Argiles rutilantes Formation1
- Bajo de la Carpa Formation · Neuquén Group1
- Vegas de Matute Formation1
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The named rock units Carnotaurinae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Carnotaurinae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Carnotaurinae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
157 taxa- Majungasaurus crenatissimus25 sites
- Masiakasaurus knopfleri10 sites
- Madtsoia madagascariensis6 sites
- Simosuchus clarki6 sites
- Arcovenator5 sites
- Titanosauridae5 sites
- Abelisauridae4 sites
- Beelzebufo ampinga4 sites
- Crocodyliformes4 sites
- Dromaeosauridae4 sites
- Rhabdodon4 sites
- Sauropoda4 sites
- Testudines4 sites
- Titanosauria4 sites
- Anura3 sites
- Eusuchia3 sites
- Iberoccitanemys atlanticum3 sites
- Lacertilia3 sites
- Lirainosaurus astibiae3 sites
- Neosuchia3 sites
- Nodosauridae3 sites
- Ornithothoraces3 sites
- Paraves3 sites
- Rapetosaurus krausei3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 35 sites for Carnotaurinae, 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
21 references- Overview of the history of discovery, taxonomy, phylogeny, and biogeography of Majungasaurus crenatissimus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar12
- Upper Cretaceous European theropod palaeobiodiversity, palaeobiogeography and the intra‐Maastrichtian faunal turnover: new contributions from the Iberian fossil site of Laño3
- Predatory dinosaur remains from Madagascar: implications for the Cretaceous biogeography of Gondwana2
- New contributions to the knowledge of Abelisauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Ibero-Armorican landmass1
- A new pelomedusoid turtle, Sahonachelys mailakavava, from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar provides evidence for convergent evolution of specialized suction feeding among pleurodires1
- A review of the upper Campanian vertebrate site of Armuña (Segovia Province, Spain)1
- A new abelisaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of southern France: palaeobiogeographical implications1
- A new, richly fossiliferous member comprised of tidal deposits in the Upper Cretaceous Maevarano Formation, northwestern Madagascar1
- An articulated pectoral girdle and forelimb of the abelisaurid theropod Majungasaurus crenatissimus from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar1
- Theropod tooth assemblages from the Late Cretaceous Maevarano Formation and the possible presence of dromaeosaurids in Madagascar1
- Paleoenvironment and paleoecology of Majungasaurus crenatissimus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar1
- A new record of Carnotaurinae (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Neuquén, Patagonia1
Each of the 35 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. 9 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 content1
Picture of Carnotaurinae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Carnotaurus, Chlupáč Museum, Prague-2.jpg : Czech Wikipedia user Packa derivative work: Hic et nunc
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Carnotaurinae was found in Sketchfab.
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 itAbelisauridae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sereno 1998