‘The Scary One’: Newly Discovered Dinosaur Was A True Meat-Eating Terror

There is a tradition of giving badass names to dinosaurs. “Tyrannosaurus rex” means “king of the tyrant lizards”. In 2020, scientists named a new species “reaper of deathNow say hello to ‘the scary one’, a toothy dinosaur found in South America.

Llukalkan aliocranianus roamed present-day Argentina about 80 million years ago. He was over 5 meters long and sported a short head with bulging bones that would have looked a bit like a giant-sized Gila monster.

A team of researchers led by paleontologist Federico Gianechini from the National University of San Luis in Argentina this week published an article on the dino in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“This is a particularly important find because it suggests that the diversity and abundance of abelisaurids was remarkable, not only across Patagonia, but also in more local areas during the dinosaur twilight period,” said Gianechini in a press release from the editor of the journal Taylor & Francis Group.

Llukalkan aliocranianus is a species of abelisaurids, short-armed bipedal dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period that resembled T. rex. The name is a mixture of Mapuche – an indigenous language of South America – and Latin. Llukalkan means “the one who scares” and aliocranianus means “different skull” in Latin.

Scientists have discovered parts of a skull fossil, including a well-preserved brain case, the area surrounding the brain.

The fossil shows that Llukalkan aliocranianus had different characteristics than its cousins, including “a small posterior sinus filled with air in the middle ear area”. “This finding involves a hearing adaptation different from other abelisaurids, and possibly a more acute sense of hearing,” said study co-author Ariel Mendez of the Patagonian Institute of Geology and Paleontology.

Fierce, stocky-armed dinosaurs like T. rex have long captured the imagination of the public. Llukalkan aliocranianus may not have the name recognized, but it draws on a fascinating story of meat-eating dinosaurs that once ruled South America.