Spec Dinosauria: Abelisauroidea

 

We know today that even toward the end of Mesozoic, most predatory dinosaurs were feathered rather than scaled, but it was still a bit of a shock to the first of Spec's biologists to find a planet seemingly populated only with fuzzy carnivores. Deinonychosaurian draks and tyrannosauroid striders (the principal predatory guilds of Spec) are both generously plumed, and so look incongruously cuddly.  In Africa, however, striding across the sun-baked savannas and tearing through the jungle primeval, were the real dinosaurs “big, scaly monsters”, knobbed with horns and spines, gnashing razor teeth and bellowing their ancient anger across the plains. Some traditionalists may be a bit disappointed with the fuzzy predators of the north, but the abelisaurs, hunters of Africa and southern Asia, are true scaly horrors.

HISTORY
Abelisaurs are derived from an ancient lineage, far removed from the feathered coelurosaurs that rule in the north. Indeed, these scaly carnivores split from their feathered cousins some time during the Early Jurassic, 200-220 million years ago. The ancestors of the abelisaurs were dinosaurs like Ceratosaurus, fairly generalized predators that ranged across the Jurassic globe. By the Cretaceous, the last era of the Mesozoic, with most of the northern hemisphere now in the grip of the coelurosaurs, a group of these scaly predators, the abelisauroids, retained its dominance in South America, Madagascar, India and Africa, and probably in Australia and Antarctica.  Some of these abelisaurs were fairly normal-looking large and medium carnivores, while other took the form of strange, horned creatures like Carnotaurus, which resembles, but is only distantly related to, the modern priscataurs. These creatures were continued to flourish throughout the early Tertiary in both Africa and South America. South America's species, however, were wiped out in the Pliocene, when a meteorite struck close to the continent 3.3 million years ago. Today, the abelisaurs can only be found in Africa and the warmer parts of Asia, and one group still holds on on Madagascar.  All abelisauroids are well adapted to long-distance running, similar to the tyrannosaurs, but their inability to stand cold has kept them out of northern Eurasia, the tyrant-lizards' stronghold. In India, the Middle East, and Africa, however, the abelisaurs are dominant, hunting large herbivores like hadrosaurs and cerotopsians, which also favor warm climates.

PRISCATAURIDAE (Black beasts, qinlong, moloks, and pantherbulls)
  The abelisaurian priscataurs ("butcher-bulls") range throughout Africa and the warmer parts of Eurasia as far east as India, but the African realm is their stronghold, from which they have successfully restricted the spread of large coelurosaurian predators from the North. This history is in stark contrast to their South American cousins, which were wiped out by invading North American predators during the Pliocene. However, the priscataurs' inability to cope with cool temperatures has barred them from spreading into northern Asia and the Americas.  Despite their ecological similarities to tyrannosaurs, priscataurs retain most of the primordial hunting style of big theropods. Like tyrannosaurs they chase their prey over long distances, but their killing method is different: priscataurs open their cavernous maw, crash into their prey, cut a big chunk of flesh out by means of their (comparatively) small, bladelike teeth, and retreat, waiting for the victim to die from blood loss and shock. Unlike tyrannosaurs with their immensely powerful jaws and huge, banana-shaped teeth, priscataurs are inefficient eaters, incapable of cleaning a carcass, let alone of cracking bones to get at the marrow. This habit probably explains the constant association of priscataurs with crunchercrocs.  Priscatauridae probably evolved in Africa from mid-sized abelisaurids midway through the Cenozoic, developing a larger, stronger skulls and increasingly atrophied forelimbs. In modern forms, the digits have become fused and are completely non-functional, with just one or two claws. May retain some function as muscle attachments in the torso or as claspers during mating, but may be completely functionless. Another unusual feature of the priscataurs is that the eye socket is, in adults, completely divided into two halves, the euorbital fenestra containing the eye and the parorbital fenestra containing a sinus.



(fig. 2) Skull of a horned molok, Afromoloch diabolus. Note that the orbit (eye socket) has divided into two: the euorbital fenestra above and the parorbital fenestra below.   The horned molok is an African theropod that is remarkably similar to Carnotaurus of the Cretaceous of South America. Horned moloks live in small packs of 6-10 adult females and one male. Both sexes have large horny ridges above their eyes, these ridges having probably evolved to shadow the eyes from the sun. The male's ridges, however, have become ridiculously large nonfunctional horns. These horns seem to be purely sexual ornaments, and though the males have ritualized butting contests over the females, they only use the horny growths in front of the eye horns. Adult male horned moloks do not take part in hunting, but instead allows females to kill prey. The loner, un-mated males do hunt for themselves, but once they have mated, their horns grow to a size that blocks their vision to such an extend that effective hunting is impossible.

The caped molok is the smaller of the two molok species and lives far north of its savannah-dwelling cousin. Although these 5 â€“ 6 m long predators are rather tiny compared to their kin, caped moloks are often the largest predators of the arid scrub that is their home. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Caped moloks are non-gregarious, hunting singly or in mated pairs. The males of the species tend to be more lightly built than the females, and sport enlarged brow-horns (though not nearly so large as those of the horned molok) and bright red scales on the bridge of the nose. Both sexes sport the "cape" of dark scales for which the species is named. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> The asura (Afromoloch indus) is a close relative of the caped and horned moloks, but lives in India rather than Africa. This 6 m long priscataur is a cursorial pack-hunter like the horned molok, but the asura lacks the enlarged orbital horns of its cousins and seems anatomically more primitive than the African species. It therefore seems unlikely that it could be descended from them, and indeed, it is not. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Fossils tell of a common ancestor of all Afromoloch species, which once roamed all over southern Eurasia, and was then pushed back to the warmer regions by the ice ages. This event isolated the indomolok from the African moloks, which only then split into two different species. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Home to gigantic herds of migratory and resident ungulapedes, the Serengeti is a mix of high grasslands, freshwater lakes, and plateaus covered by mountainous flora and spectacularly diversified fauna. But if those plentiful herds of herbivores mainly rely on speed to avoid bigger and slower priscataurid species from ripping their flesh off, they need constantly to be concerned about those swift running predators, the pantherbulls. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> "Pantherbull" is a designation given to the three species of Tauropanthera: small, lightweight priscataurs that rely on high speed to achieve their killings. Pantherbulls present some characteristics, which help them to deal with such speedy prey. They are relatively small predators (the biggest achieving 7 meters in length). Their dermal armor and ornamentation are almost completely absent, while the legs are powerful, anchored by massive thigh muscles to hurl the animal forward at speeds exceeding 75 km/h. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Pantherbulls' skin is often cryptically patterned or highly contrasted in order to help to blend in against an always shifting color environment. Their skulls are blunt, extremely strong and light due to enlarged openings, and they have superior senses of smell and sight. Pantherbulls wander through these plains and outer ridges of sparse forest either alone (young adult single males), in pairs (adult brothers), or in female packs. They are among the most sociable of the priscataurids. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Pantherbulls are the cheetahs of Spec, streamlined pursuit predators that run down their prey, the agile lanceheads. Females usually cooperate in bringing down prey, but the larger males hunt on their own or in the company of a single brother, and can knock a fullly grown male lancehead down with a single bite. The scaly chicks are closely looked after in the female packs until they reach sexual maturity (which takes some 3 years). At this point, females join the pack as contributing hunters, while some males wander off on their own.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Popularly known as the most dangerous predators of Africa, pantherbulls are the subject of much bad press, much of it fabricated. However, these speedy carnivores are fiercely territorial, and extremely intolerant of trespassing biologists.

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<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">The cheetaur (Tauropanthera velox) is the fastest member of a family of sprinters. These predators rank among the swiftest creatures on Spec, having evolved to catch, not the four-legged ungulapeds, but the fleet-footed, two-legged jackalopes. The cheetaur is also the smallest of the priscataurs, only 4 m long (half of this consisting of the tail) “ an adaptation to hunt small and fast-moving game. Cheetaurs are usually loners, but are sometimes known to cooperate with siblings or other closely related individuals. Despite this fact, a cheetaur will drive away or kill an unrelated individual if it catches one trespassing in its territory. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> The nimrod is an Asian cousin of the cheetaur, but unlike its African relative, the nimrod is a pack-hunter which relies more on cooperation and endurance than explosive speed. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> The low, menacing roar of a black beast declaring the boundaries of its vast territory can often be heard over the African plains. One the largest land-carnivores on the planet, the black beast is surpassed in size only by the Siberian subspecies of the imperial sabre-tyrant.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Black beasts will consume any meat they can find, relying on dogged persistence rather than speed to exhaust faster-moving prey, which they will ruthlessly pursue for days on end. They will also drive smaller predators away from their kills... gladly eating the smaller predators if they stand and fight. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Various species of priscataur can be found throughout continental Africa all the way to southeastern Asia, but the black beast is the bulkiest of these predators.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">(fig. 11) Skull and head of a black beast, Nigertherium aarghium. In this species, the parorbital fenestra has closed.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Named after the terrible demon king of Indian mythology, the ravana (Nigertherium rakasha) is the most fearsome theropod of India or at least the ugliest. Although, at 9 metres in length, this monster is not quite as large as its African cousin, the black beast, it is nevertheless the biggest, meanest beast in its neighbourhood. This solitary predator is not known for its speed, and mainly hunts slower prey, such as undaurs and their young. However, like its African relative, the ravana prefers to steal the meal of the day from smaller predators such as indomoloks or drakhans. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Fiercely territorial, ravanas often engage in extremely violent battles with members of their own species. As a result, all adult ravanas bear numerous scars as reminders of past battles won and lost. It is not unusual to see ravanas missing either or even both of their small flipper-like forelimbs, though such individuals seem to fare less well in competition over the females. The intra-species fighting seems to weed out weak individuals, and may serve as a mechanism for controlling ravana populations.

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Tarasques are the confusingly-named largest carnivores in a huge swath of forest and jungles that extends from what would be Bangladesh through southern China to Thailand, with smaller subspecies probably dwelling in mainland Malaysia. Named early in the history of Spec exploration by French biologists, the tarasques have been stuck with their culturally incorrect common name ever since, and the proposed alternate name qinlong has come to mean a bull male tarasque. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> Tarasques may hunt in packs, but usually they forage alone, ambushing large prey and actively pursuing smaller beasts. Their principal prey are the cenoceratopsians, creatures like the undaur and the balundaur whose principal means of defence is their enormous bulk. Tarasques are therefore much larger and more heavily-built than nian, relying on sheer mass to topple and dispatch one of the mighty ceratopsians.

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<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">Although their size is impressive, it is the distinctive call of this species that is its principle claim to fame. The females emit infrasound when in rut, whereas the qinlong have a menacing thunder-like roar used to boundary the territory and consequently to attract females. The cacophony that results is unforgettable.

NOASAURIDAE (Kagrus and the cain)
<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">These small, scaly predators have also survived to the present day, and live in Africa and Madagascar. <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> - Brian Choo, Daniel Bensen, Tiina Aumala, João Boto, and David Marjanović <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">

<p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);"> ,=N. rakshasa (Ravana) ,=Nigertherium=| ,=|             `=N. aarghium (Black beast) | |                                            | `=Priscataurus eximius (Tarasque) |                           ,=Priscatauridae=|                ,=A. diabolus (Horned molok) |               |              ,=|                            |                | ,=Afromoloch=| `=A.colarus (Caped molok) |               | |            |                            |                `=|            `=A. indus (Asura) |                 |            ,=Abelisauridae=|                  |                  ,=T. atrox (Greater pantherbull) |              |                  |               ,=|             |               |                  |               |  `=T. nimrod (Nimrod) |              |                  `=Tauropanthera=| |              |                                  `=T. velox (Cheetaur) |              | <p style="color:rgb(58,58,58);">=Abelisauroidea=|                                |=â€ Carnotaurus sastrei |              |             |               `=â€ Abelisaurus comahuensis |           `=Noasauridae