Abelisaurus
Named after Roberto Abel of the Argentinian Museum of Natural Sciences, this late Cretaceous dinosaur is something of a mystery - but we do know it’s a pretty fearsome predator.
The problem with Abelisaurus is that it’s an elusive character. What’s more, palaeontologists have very few remains to work with; the only evidence found so far is one skull - and that’s incomplete! However, even from such an unpromising start scientists can make an amazing number of assumptions about its size and what it looks like.
Hanging around
Of course, much of a palaeontologist’s work is open to debate and contradiction. Many scientists are not convinced that Abelisaurus is a separate sort of dinosaur at all, but suspect it is actually Carcharodontosaurus (car-CHA-row-DON-toe-SORE-us), the big Moroccan predator. If so, it would mean Carcharodontosaurus was in existence not only later, but also in a different area.
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