Rajasaurus
Name:
Rajasaurus
(Princely lizard).
Phonetic: Rah-jah-sore-us.
Named By: J. A. Wilson, P. C. Sereno,
S. Srivastava, D. K. Bhatt, A. Khosla & A.
Sahni - 2003.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Abelisauridae, Carnotaurinae.
Species: R. narmadensis (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Skull is 60 centimetres long. Body length estimates vary greatly, and range from 6 to 9 meters.
Known locations: India - Lameta Formation.
Time period: Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull and most of the post
cranial skeleton.
Although
officially named in 2003, the first confirmed remains of Rajasaurus
were found in between 1982 and 1984 by Suresh Srivastava.
However there is an outside chance that the first remains may have
actually been discovered way back in 1923 with the naming of
Lametasaurus. Lametasaurus
though is now considered to ba a
paleontological chimera and what this means is that the remains of
several different dinosaurs were incorrectly interpreted as belonging
to the same dinosaur.
Rajasaurus
is a carnotaurine abelisaur,
and as such it is thought to be related
to other late Cretaceous forms like Carnotaurus
and Majungasaurus,
the latter genus being thought to be a particularly close relative.
Majungasaurus is known only from Madagascar and
twenty million years
before the Rajasaurus holotype specimen died,
Madagascar was actually
part of India. Because both Majungasaurus and Rajasaurus
are both
from the Later stages of the Cretaceous and both were isolated from one
another, they must have had a common ancestor active twenty million
years earlier when India and Madagascar were still joined.
Rajasaurus
seems to have had a low rounded horn that grew from the nasal bones of
the skull, a similar feature also appearing on the skull of
Majungasaurus. This is interesting since the
tyrannosaurs
that were
the dominant theropods in the northern continents steadily lost
ornamental structures on their heads as they became more advanced. In
contrast to them the ornamentation of Rajasaurus
combined with the
double horns of Carnotaurus suggests that the
abelisaurs seem to have
developed head ornamentation as they grew more advanced. Another
Indian abelisaur named Indosaurus
is also thought to have possibly had
a pair of horns above its eyes, although this remains difficult to
prove since the holotype specimen has been lost.
Further reading
- A new abelisaurid (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Lameta Formation
(Cretaceous, Maastrichtian) of India - J. A. Wilson, P. C. Sereno, S.
Srivastava, D. K. Bhatt, A. Khosla & A. Sahni - 2003.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |
 |