| Ilokelesia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 95 Ma |
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|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Abelisauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Carnotaurinae |
| clade: | †Brachyrostra |
| Genus: | †Ilokelesia Coria & Salgado, 1998 |
| Species: | †I. aguadagrandensis |
| Binomial name | |
| Ilokelesia aguadagrandensis Coria & Salgado, 1998 |
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Ilokelesia is a primitive abelisaur found in 1991,[1] preserved in the layers of the earliest Late Cretaceous[2] of the Río Limay Formation, Neuquén Group, located near Plaza Huincul, Neuquén Province, Argentina. The specimen, consisting of very fragmentary elements of the skull, the axial and the appendicular skeletons, 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, is characterized by features of the skull, namely of its 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 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; it retained, however, primitive features for Abelisauria as are an opening in the quadrate bone and a T-shaped postorbital.
Rodolfo A. Coria, Leonardo Salgado. A Basal Abelisauria Novas, 1992 (Theropoda-Ceratosauria) from the Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. (December 1998.) Lisbon. Gaia Nº 15. Pp. 89–102