Introduction
Ekrixinatosaurus is quite a rare dinosaur you will find in this blog and also very hard to spell. Ekrixinatosaurus belongs to a dinosaur family known as Abelisauridae and you will find a lot more dinosaurs from this family. This dinosaur may not be as popular as its’ cousin, Carnotaurus but Ekrixinatosaurus was a very important discovery as it would help in filling the gaps between other Abelisauridae dinosaurs who had missing parts of the skeleton. In this article, I will go over some facts and easily define what makes an Ekrixinatosaurus. So, let’s get started!!!
Discovery
Ekrixinatosaurus was discovered by an Argentine paleontologist named Jorge Calvo, and Chilean paleontologists David Rubilar-Rogers and Karen Moreno in 2004 in the Candeleros Formation of Argentina. Candeleros Formation is a really great formation where new dinosaurs are found as well as a lot of popular dinosaurs like the Giganotosaurus.
The name ‘Ekrixinatosaurus‘ means ‘Explosion-born lizard‘, pretty cool name and meaning if you would ask me. There is only one species of Ekrixinatosaurus found and it is called Ekrixinatosaurus novasi because the paleontologists wanted to honor Dr. Fernando Novas for his contributions to the study of Abelisaurid Theropods. This dinosaur was found because of excavations for building a gas pipeline conducted by Gasoducto del Pacífico Company as well as exploding the fossil while doing so and thus the name explosion-born. Luckily the paleontologists were able to recover the fossils in an area of 15 m2.
Biology
Ekrixinatosaurus grew up to be 2.3 m (7.5 ft) tall and 6.5 m to 8 m (21 ft and 26 ft) in length and weighing 800 kg (1,800 lb). There has been many arguments about the size of Ekrixinatosaurus as some estimated the length of 11 m from the approximation of the skull size alone and that turned out to be not so reliable as it would be very difficult for Ekrixinatosaurus to reach those sizes. So far, the largest Abelisauridae crown is held by Pycnonemosaurus, do let me know in the comments if you would like a Species Profile of it.
Ekrixinatosaurus is, of course, part of the Abelisauridae family of Theropods but it is one of the more later evolving genus of this family tree and it is placed in the clade of Brachyrostra, which now contains 13 genus in total, which is mind-blowing in my mind. The most closest relative of Ekrixinatosaurus is Skorpiovenator, by now I don’t think I need to point out kind of Theropod Skorpiovenator is.
Ekrixinatosaurus was a medium-sized theropod that roamed South America in 100 to 97 million years ago in Cretaceous Period. The skull of this dinosaur is very short and it is common for Abelisaurids. The skull had a lot of bumps and small horns for fighting other Ekrixinatosaurus and the skin texture could have also been bumpy.
One thing we are not sure about is that this dinosaur did have any prominent horns over its eyes or before the eyes in the skull area or not at all because the paleontologist does not have the whole skull. The length of the skull is around 33 inches, that is like around the height of your leg.
That is just the skull and now you can see why paleontologists have a hard time finding the exact size of a dinosaur because sometimes the skulls can be huge but that does not mean the body has to be that big either. The front limbs are tiny and vestigial-looking but they probably had some kind of function but we do not know yet as you cannot learn behaviors from just the fossils. The body structure is quite streamlined as it is made for running.
Ekrixinatosaurus lived in a lush, tropical world where it was inhabited by lots of variety of dinosaurs and other animals. It lived alongside one of the largest carnivorous dinosaur in the world, Giganotosaurus and long-necked titanosaurs like Andesaurus. And not just that, I mentioned earlier that the Candeleros Formation is a really important fossil bed, because of the great number of dinosaur fossils found here like the Rebbachisaurids Sauropods, Limaysaurus and Nocsaspondylus.
There have also been remains of an Iguanodontids but not named yet. Smaller predators inhabited this location like the Dromaeosaurid Buitreraptor and Alvarezsaurid Alnashteri as well as a weird basal Coelurosaurian Bicentenaria. I did not know so many dinosaurs were found in this formation and I need to ‘dig up’ more info about these guys to create more Species Profiles. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the next Species Profile in the comments below.
What is fascinating to see is that Ekrixinatosaurus had to share and maintain a ecosystem with giant Carcharodontosauridae predator while also being the largest Abelisaurid at its time which is intriguing. With more research, it has been suggested that with the extinction of Carcharodontosauridae carnivores, Abelisauridaes flourished even more and were able to diversify into more robust body shapes to occupy the niche of top predators in the food chain. This goes to show that you need to hang on and the hard work will pay off.
While both Giganotosaurus and Ekrixinatosaurus were the largest of their own families and also does refute the earlier hypothesis, I still do believe in the earlier hypothesis and that it could be the transitional point where Abelisaurids were starting to compete with the more larger predators and eventually overthrow as more Abelisaurids did appear after Ekrixinatosaurus.
And let’s not forget the niches of the 2 giants took place in the food chain and one must have disputes with one another for food. In addition, the known distribution of abelisaurids in South America, Madagascar and India brings the hypothesis of a dispersion route between these areas by a terrestrial bridge called the Kerguelen Plateau that formed prior to the separation of Africa and South America.
Merchandise:
While there is not many merch or media available of this incredible dinosaur, there is only 1 action figure released by Mattel under their Jurassic World toyline and I really like the figure. It has the shape and structure of an Abelisaurid but it has horns for some reason but it cannot be refuted or proven it had horns because the top part of the skull is not found yet and so for this time, the creative liberty risk was worth it because it looks really good and I highly recommend it for you to get.
Ekrixinatosaurus merch and media is as rare as the dinosaur itself but there is one merch that you can get one for yourself and you can follow my Amazon affiliate links to get it!!!
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