Angaturama
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| Angaturama limai Kellner & Campos, 1996 |
Angaturama (AHN-gah-too-RAH-ma - (Tupi Indian) angaturama meaning "noble, brave") is a spinosaurid theropod from the Early Cretaceous Santana Formation of northeastern Brazil. The type specimen was discovered in a limestone nodule and consists of the incomplete anterior portion of a skull. A description of the new species by Alexander W.A. Kellner & Diogenes de A. Campos was published in February 1996. It was named after Angaturama, a protective spirit in the aboriginal Tupi Indian culture of Brazil, and paleontologist Murilo R. de Lima, who informed Kellner of the specimen in 1991. Angaturama was diagnosed by the very strong lateral compression of the snout, and a thin sagittal crest (shape unknown) on top of the premaxillae. Fish may have formed a large part of its diet.
Angaturama was originally described as "the first remain of a dinosaur skull described from Brazil." However, as the paper describing Angaturama was in press, another Brazilian spinosaurid skull was published as Irritator. Many paleontologists suspect Angaturama and Irritator are the same dinosaur, in which case the name Irritator has priority.
[edit] References
- Kellner, A.W.A. & D.A. Campos, 1996. First Early Cretaceous dinosaur from Brazil with comments on Spinosauridae. N. Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh. 199 (2): 151-166.
