Kingdom Animalia Clade Dinosauria Family †Abelisauridae Phylum Chordata Order Saurischia | Class Reptilia Suborder Theropoda Species †I. aguadagrandensis Rank Genus | |
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Scientific name Ilokelesia aguadagradensis Similar Zupaysaurus, Becklespinax, Lourinhanosaurus, Sinovenator, Stomatosuchus | ||
Ilokelesia top 5 facts
Ilokelesia is an abelisaur found in 1991, preserved in the layers of the earliest Late Cretaceous of the Río Limay Formation, Neuquén Group, located near Plaza Huincul, Neuquén Province, Argentina. The specimen, consisting of very fragmentary elements of the skull and the axial and appendicular skeleton, was described by Coria et al. in late 1998.
The generic name's etymology is derived from the Mapuche language, ilo meaning "flesh" and kelesio, "lizard"; while the specific descriptor reflects the name of the locality where the fossil was found, Aguada Grande.
Ilokelesia, a medium-sized theropod measuring 5.3 metres (17 ft) in length, is characterized by features of the skull, namely of the quadrate and postorbital bones. The vertebral series also has distinctive characters setting it apart from other abelisaurs, such as reduced processes on the cervical vertebrae and dorsal vertebrae lacking pleurocoels.
I. aguadagrandensis was considered the most basal abelisaur described at the time, sharing characters, such as an expansion of the postorbital bone above the orbit and a flange of the same bone inside the orbit, with Abelisauridae and Noasauridae; but it was considered to retain primitive features for Abelisauria, such as an opening in the quadrate bone and a T-shaped postorbital. A subsequent analysis has placed it within Abelisauridae, as a brachyrostran carnotaurine.