Chenanisaurus barbaricus
Chenanisaurus– an abelisaur from the terminal Cretaceous of Morocco, North Africa
The phosphate mines of Morocco are one of the richest fossil sites in the world. Producing vast numbers of shark and mosasaur teeth, they may be the largest fossil dig in the world. They represent the remains of an incredibly productive ancient sea. At the time, sea levels were high, flooding North Africa, and the plains south of the Atlas Mountains were a shallow sea, full of mosasaurs, elasmosaurs, marine turtles, and sharks. Giant marine pterosaurs wheeled overhead. Oceans aren’t the first place you’d search for a dinosaur, however.
A few years back, however, a partial jaw turned up from a carnivorous dinosaur. A quick look revealed it as an abelisaur. The gnarly bone and strong chin are typical of the group. Abelisaurs are bipedal predators, like tyrannosaurs, but with a short bulldog face, and stumpy little arms. Some of them have horns, which gives them a sort of demonic appearance, unlike tyrannosaurs and other birdlike dinosaurs, they were probably scaly, rather than feathered. In the Latest Cretaceous, they were the dominant predators in South America, India, Europe, Madgascar- and now, as we were seeing, in Africa as well.
Chenanisaurus is unusual in a couple of ways. For one, it’s unusually large. It’s hard to tell from just a jaw, but it appears to be among the largest abelisaurs known so far. The jaw is also very deep, suggesting strong jaws and. a powerful bite.
We named it a new species- Chenanisaurus barbaricus. Chennane refers to Sidi Chennane, the mine from which the specimen comes. Barbaricus refers to the latin word barbarus, or barbarian — the Romans term for the people of Morocco. This name has been corrupted and is now used, proudly by the Berber people of Morocco.
Chenanisaurus is among the youngest abelisaurids known. It was, along with T. rex and Triceratops, one of the last dinosaurs on Earth. It would have seen the sky lit up the asteroid after it struck in the Yucatan, and then watched as huge tsunamis rolled in hours later.
It shows that a fairly typical Gondwanan fauna- abelisaurid predators, and titanosaurian herbivores- hung on into the latest Cretaceous in Africa. Dinosaurs were doing well right up to the very end, when they were cut down in their prime.
The full paper is here: Longrich Nicholas R, Pereda-Suberbiola Xabier, Jalil Nour-Eddine, Khaldoune Fatima, Jourani Essaid. An abelisaurid from the latest Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) of Morocco, North Africa. Cretaceous Research. 2017 Aug 1;76:40-52.