An artist’s reconstruction of Carnotaurus sastrei based on the scaly skin described by Hendrickx & Bell. Image credit: Jake Baardse.
SciNews has an article about a reexamined dinosaur discovery in Argentina. Carnotaurus sastrei, a name that means "meat eating bull", is a dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina during the late Cretaceous period about 70 to 72 million years ago. A specimen, which was discovered in 1984 by famed Argentine paleontologist Jose Bonaparte, was recently redescribed in a paper that appeared in the journal Cretaceous Research. In the paper, the researchers, Dr. Christophe Hendrickx from the Unidad Ejecutora Lillo and Dr. Phil Bell from the University of New England, examined skin impressions that were preserved from the shoulders, belly, and tail regions. They found that although the skin's texture varied more than expected, it was scaly and held no evidence of feathers.
They found that the dinosaur’s skin was more diverse than previously thought.
“The scaly skin of this abelisaurid is the most completely preserved of any theropod and the only example of this form of integument known outside of Tetanurae, excluding footprints,” they said.
“The skin is preserved in the shoulder, thoracic, tail and, possibly, neck regions.”
“It consists of medium to large (2-6.5 cm in diameter) conical feature scales surrounded by a network of low and small (less than 1.4 cm) non-imbricating basement scales separated by narrow interstitial tissue.”
Unlike more recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs, particularly from China, Carnotaurus sastrei was entirely scaly, with no evidence of feathers.
