Name:
Ligabueino
(Ligabue’s little one).
Phonetic: Lig-ah-bwen-o.
Named By: Jose Fernando Bonaparte - 1996.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Abelisuroidea.
Species: L. andesi (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Estimated about 80 centimetres long for
the holotype, though this is believed to be of a juvenile. Adults
would have been larger.
Known locations: Argentina - La Amarga Formation.
Time period: Barremian/Early Aptian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Fragmentary post cranial
remains, neural arches of vertebrae, femur, ilium, pubis,
phalanx.
Initially thought to be a tiny abelisauroid at the time of discovery, the lack of fusing in the vertebrae is now seen as proof that the individual which makes up the holotype is actually a juvenile. Unfortunately, because the remains of Ligabueino are so incomplete, it is hard to ascertain exactly what kind of abelisaur Ligabueino was, hence the more general description of it as an abelisauroid.
Further reading
- Cretaceous tetrapods of Argentina, Jose Fernando Bonaparte -
1996.
- New Materials of Masiakasaurus knopfleri
Sampson, Carrano, and
Forster, 2001, and Implications for the Morphology of the
Noasauridae (Theropoda: Ceratosauria)., M. T. Carrano,
M. A. Loewen & J. J. W. Sertic - 2011.