Mapusaurus roseae skeletal diagram. By Franoys Watch

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Mapusaurus roseae is the most derived Carcharodontosaurid known (and also one of the largest, tied with Giganotosaurus). This is the one that hunted Argentinosaurus, not Giganotosaurus, and apparently it could have been social. It was the apex predator of it's enviroment.



Mapusaurus was found in the Huincul formation, and was named after the rose colored rocks it was found in and after Rose Lewtin who sponsered the expedition. It lived 97-93 million years ago (Late Cretaceous, Cenomanian age) in the Gondwanan continent, in what today is Argentina.



Several bone elements are coherent with at least one Giganotosaurus sized individual, all of the biggest axial skeleton remains match those of Giganotosaurus in size, and a maxilla, a dentary, a quadrate, a fibula, a tibia, a pubic shaft fragment, and a scapular blade fragment and ischium could have belonged to it. The restoration is scaled to the size of this individual, although other smaller Mapusaurus bones were of course used and scaled up to match the size of the bigger remains.



Update 09/08/2018:



Updated the squamosal,dentary, and quadrate.

Redrew the neural arches of the cervical and dorsal vertebrae.

Added the catalog numbers of more specimens used for the scaling of this individual (More than 16 fossils are coherent with an individual of this size, that rivals or exceeds Giganotosaurus holotype size)

Re scaled the tail with the missing bits in Carcharodontosaurines restored after Acrocanthosaurus and Allosaurus.

Asuming the radius is from the same individual as the humerus and the 118 cm femora, the forearm and hand result a 15% larger than in the previous version, and thus the arm is less ridiculously small, although it is still very reduced in size.

Added mass estimation obtained via Graphical double integration, with a top view of the skull based on Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus and with the postcrania cross scaled from Acrocanthosaurus. (Journal will come eventually).

Changed the stance.



Update 16/09/2018



Turns out tibiae were oversized and the wrong size figure for them was listed. Fixed.

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Published : Feb 24, 2017