VR Jurassic Encyclopedia #24
Carnotaurus dinosaur facts VR 360 video education
In today’s episode of our VR 360 Jurassic Encyclopedia series, we’ll tell you about a lightly built theropod native to South America. In this article, we take a closer look at Carnotaurus dinosaur. If you want to know a huge dose of interesting facts about this dinosaur, we invite you to read this article and to watch the 24th episode of our series.
Carnotaurus, as we wrote earlier, was a lightly built theropod that lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous period. This dinosaur most likely lived between 71 and 69 million years ago. The only species of this dinosaur is Carnotaurus sastrei. Interestingly, the species is known from a single well-preserved skeleton, which is one of the best-studied theropods from the Southern Hemisphere. Carnotaurus was a derived member of the Abelisauridae, a group of large theropods that occupied a large predator niche in the southern lands of Gondwana during the Late Cretaceous period.
The only skeleton of this dinosaur that has been found was recovered during an expedition by Argentine paleontologist José Bonaparte in 1984. The skeleton that was found was well preserved and belonged to an adult as indicated by the overgrown stitches in the brain boxes. After the discoveries, it was decided to make another expedition to search for more remains of this dinosaur. Several additional skin flaps were found during the next expedition.
It was time to move on to the construction of Carnotaurus. This dinosaur was a large but lightly built predator. The research carried out on the skeleton made it possible to estimate that the individual found was 7.5 to 8 meters long. The size of the dinosaur indicates that it was one of the largest Abelisaurus. It is estimated that Carnotaurus was about 2.5 meters tall which means that it was as big as the average Indian elephant but still smaller than the African elephant. It is also estimated that the dinosaur’s weight ranged from 1300 to as much as 2100 kg.
The diet of the dinosaur is still the subject of much debate. According to findings over the years, it has been determined that the dinosaur could have fed mainly on relatively small prey but was also able to hunt large dinosaurs. The dinosaur’s jaws were probably adapted to inflict slashing wounds to weaken prey. Some scientists speculate that the bite force of Carnotaurus was 3341 Newtons.
This is the end of the interesting facts we have prepared for you in this article. If you want to know the exact structure of the dinosaur but many more amazing facts, we invite you to watch our VR Jurassic Encyclopedia #24 episode.