Elemgasem

Say it: el-em-GAH-sem NOO-bih-lus

Name means: “Elemgasem refers to a god of the Tehuelche people, and nubilus means cloudy or misty in Latin”1

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosLate Cretaceous

Elemgasem was a meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Patagonia, Argentina, about 90 million years ago. It was a medium-sized predator with strong legs and a bony skull, and it belonged to the abelisaurid family, which were top hunters in the southern continents.1 2

Lived

94 to 86 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Portezuelo Formation, Neuquén Province, Patagonia, Argentina2 1

Food

Meat2 1

Length

4 to 6 m1

estimated from related abelisaurids; the holotype was a subadult

Weight

300 kg to 500 kg1

Height

1.5 to 2 m1

at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

at the hips

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 17 big dogs

as long as 6 dogs nose to tailas long as 33 bananas end to endas heavy as 100 watermelonsabout as tall as a door

How big was Elemgasem compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Elemgasem is the first abelisaurid dinosaur ever found from the Turonian to Coniacian time period, which was a gap in the fossil record for this group.1

The only known skeleton of Elemgasem belonged to a subadult, but it had already reached sexual maturity.1

Elemgasem had a rough, bumpy surface on the side of its fibula (a leg bone) and a deep wall on its calcaneum (a heel bone), which are unique features.1

Its tail vertebrae were shaped a bit differently from those of other abelisaurids, which helped scientists identify it as a new species.1

Elemgasem lived during a time of big changes in South America, including climate shifts and extinctions in the oceans.1

Scientists are not sure exactly where Elemgasem fits in the abelisaurid family tree, but it is closely related to a group called Furileusauria.1

AI-made picture of Elemgasem — An AI-made picture of how Elemgasem might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Elemgasem
Named by: Baiano et al. 20223
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Abelisauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Ceratosauria > Abelisauridae3
Age of the rocks: 94 to 86 million years (Turonian / Coniacian)3
Rock formations: Portezuelo3
Countries: Argentina3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Elemgasem was named and described in 2022 by a team of paleontologists led by Mattia A. Baiano. The fossils were found in the Portezuelo Formation in Patagonia, Argentina.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Elemgasem is related to other abelisaurids, because it appears in different positions in the family tree depending on how the data is analyzed.1

Where the facts come from

Elemgasem nubilus : a new brachyrostran abelisaurid (Theropoda, Ceratosauria) from the Portezuelo Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Patagonia, Argentina (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Elemgasem in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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