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Jordan Mallon

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Quilmesaurus curriei - Jordan Mallon

Quilmesaurus curriei

(KILL-meh-SORE-us CUR-ee-eye)

Currie's Quilme lizard

Length (m): 5.30 to 5.30

Weight (kg): Unknown

Diet: Carnivore (Meat)

Family: Abelisauridae

MYA: 83.6 to 72.1

Epoch: Late Cretaceous

Age: Campanian

Year Described: 2001

Year Discovered: 1988

Discovery Location: Salitral Ojo de Agua, Río Negro, Argentina

Other locations where specimens have been found:

Only one specimen has been found.

Quilmesaurus curriei is a theropd from the Abelisauridae family. It would have been bipedal with a large head that possibly had small horns. It is also thought to have short arms with long claws.

Quilmesaurus would have lived in the Late Cretaceous plains of what is now the Northern Río Negro province in Argentina. It may have been one of the earlier abelisaurs, possible part of the group known as carnotaurs (usually-horned abelisaurs).

The holotype consists of only a partial leg, so a lot of this dinosaur is theorized based on other abelisaur specimens. It was discovered in the 1980s by a field crew led by Dr. Jaime Powell for the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán in the Salitral Ojo de Agua, a body of water near a saltpetre extraction site in the Río Negro province. It was described in 2001 as a carnotaur, and re-evaluated in 2007 and classified as an abelisaur.

Quilmesaurus gets its name from the Quilme people, a native group of people native to the area that were known for their ferocity and ability to resist Incan and Spanish invaders for 130 years. "Curriei" refers to Phillip J. Currie, a Canadian paleontologist that Rodolfo Coria works with on many occasions.

Paleontologists Who Described Quilmesaurus curriei:

| Coria , R. |