Meet Jakapil kaniukura, new thyreophoran from Argentina

[EmperorDinobot]

Paper is open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15535-6?fbclid=IwAR2ff7yoq9m6grxbnJLv3MLxBjKrV3ZtwLcQC7PW_duJ1JDqxLqwq-kHz_4

[Flaffy]

So we've got a lineage of bizarre, robust-jawed, armoured abelisaur lookalikes now

CollectA better get into the fray and make a figure of this species, stat. It's too good an opportunity to pass up. Who said herbivores were boring?

[MLMjp]

So basically the love child of a Majungasaurus and a Scelidosaurus.

Man it is weird, looks more like a dragon than a dinosaur to me.

[Pliosaurking]

What an odd dinosaur
I do think it looks interesting however
And I hope someone makes a figure of in the near future

[Jose S.M.]

That is one curious animal! I'd love a figure of it, my bias is from Safari, since Doug did such a great job with his armored dinosaurs, but CollectA probaably would get it first.

[Faelrin]

@MLMjp Right? Getting the same vibes here.

Move over Meraxes, this might be the coolest new dinosaur of 2022 for me.

Obligatory request for figure here (even if this one is a bit on the fragmentary side, but well it does have bits from most of the body parts to fill in the gaps with). That said it still sucks we don't have (up to date) figures of Scelidosaurus, and Scutellosaurus yet, so I worry this may also join their fates in being left behind.

Edit: Okay this thing just got a whole lot more interesting. It's from the early Late Cretaceous period (Cenomanian stage). Both of the ones I mentioned earlier are from the early Jurassic. More specifically this was found in the Candeleros Formation, which Giganotosaurus, Buitreraptor, and Ekrixinatosaurus are also from.

[Carnotaurus]

Kuse ukaunük / Mari Mari!

("Hello" in Gününa yajich/ and mapuzungun)
This is very interesting, really a surprise because there were not much southern dinosaurs of this group. I like the name the scientists have chosen, the genera in the language of Günün a Küna people (northern tehuelche or ancient pampas) and the species in Mapuche people language. The first one was considered a dead language until some years ago, when there was a recovery and studies with the elders who still speak it, and young ones learning. I have books of that language and i know people of these two native cultures of Patagonia, having friendship with some of them.

Greets!

[Gwangi]

I don't usually jump on these "we need a figure of it" bandwagons but I'm gonna make an exception here. That thing looks wicked! And I've long been clamoring for a Scutellosaurus and updated Scelidosaurus, so this one joins their ranks.

[Stegotyranno420]

Cool beans

[Halichoeres]

That is a very strange animal, especially to appear in the Late Cretaceous! I only wish there were more of it.

[Flaffy]

That is a very strange animal, especially to appear in the Late Cretaceous! I only wish there were more of it.

Indeed. A thyreophoran surviving into the Late Cretaceous truly lives up to the title of being a "ghost lineage".

(though there has been some noise challenging this placement, and instead suggesting that Jakapil should be placed within marginocephalia)

[Sim]

@Flaffy, you mean a basal thyreophoran, right?  Because there are plenty of nodosaurids and ankylosaurids from the Late Cretaceous.  And possibly a stegosaur too, Dravidosaurus.

I don't normally like fragmentary species, but this one is appealing and distinctive.  Like Cryolophosaurus, it looks different from any other animal.  I would like a figure of it, and Scelidosaurus too.

[Flaffy]

@Flaffy, you mean a basal thyreophoran, right?  Because there are plenty of nodosaurids and ankylosaurids from the Late Cretaceous.  And possibly a stegosaur too, Dravidosaurus.

I don't normally like fragmentary species, but this one is appealing and distinctive.  Like Cryolophosaurus, it looks different from any other animal.  I would like a figure of it, and Scelidosaurus too.

Right yes, such a bizarre basal offshoot you wouldn't expect surviving past the Jurassic.

[Faelrin]

Placement within Marginocephalia wouldn't surprise me either. Body plan is suspiciously Pachycephalosaurid like, but granted that's not accounting for the details of the bones themselves, and it is also just the way the speculative reconstruction of the current material looks to me. Either way though, it's an exciting find, especially to help flesh out the Candeleros Formation, and an ornithischian from Patagonia is always appreciated too.

[VD231991]

@Flaffy, you mean a basal thyreophoran, right?  Because there are plenty of nodosaurids and ankylosaurids from the Late Cretaceous.  And possibly a stegosaur too, Dravidosaurus.

I don't normally like fragmentary species, but this one is appealing and distinctive.  Like Cryolophosaurus, it looks different from any other animal.  I would like a figure of it, and Scelidosaurus too.

Susie Maidment wrote on Twitter that she considers Jakapil more of an armored ceratopsian than a basal thyreophoran, and she may well be right because Jakapil is way younger than all basal thyreophorans, and the amount of skeletal material preserved for the holotype. MPCA-PV-630, is minimal. Moreover, the fossil record of ornithischians from Berriasian-Albian localities in Gondwana besides Australia is extremely patchy, and Rich et al. (2014) stand by the original classification of the ornithischian Notoceratops as a Gondwanan ceratopsian.

Rich, T.H., Kear, B.P., Sinclair, R., Chinnery, B., Carpenter, K., McHugh, M.L., and Vickers-Rich, P., 2014. Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei Rich & Vickers-Rich, 2003 is an Australian Early Cretaceous ceratopsian. Alcheringa 38: 456–479. ISSN 0311-5518.

[EmperorDinobot]

I do not think we should jump into conclusions as to what this animal looked like. That silhouette is misleading as this is fragmentary at best, and this may represent a new group of dinosaurs we know very little to nothing about.

Making a figure of it this early would be a mistake, and it would be outdated in only a few years.

[andrewsaurus rex]

I think the artwork is jumping the gun a bit.   This critter could look like anything at this point.