It causes fear: new abelisaurid Llukalkan

[Halichoeres]

It's pretty fragmentary, consisting of a brain case and parts of the upper jaw, but it appears to be a new taxon, which the authors have named Llukalkan aliocranianus. "Llukalkan" means "one who causes fear or frightens [someone]" in Mapudungun (the language of the indigenous South American Mapuche people).

The skull:


And a painting by Jorge Blanco:


It appears to be open access, but if not I can furnish a pdf: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2020.1877151

And a popular write-up: https://scitechdaily.com/the-one-who-causes-fear-extremely-powerful-new-meat-eating-predator-discovered/

[Carnoking]

Hooray for more abelisaurs!

[andrewsaurus rex]

how big is the scale bar, do you know?  5cm? 10cm?

[Newt]

Scale bar is 5 cm; preserved maximum skull length 39.2 cm according to the paper.


Man, Patagonia was just an abelisaur factory!

[andrewsaurus rex]

thanks Newt.

that's beautiful artwork....I may have to modify a Collecta Carnotaurus figure into Llukalkan....

[HD-man]

How do you pronounce Llukalkan? I was thinking loo-cull-kin, but wanna make sure.

[Stegotyranno420]

Too my knowlegde, after studying Huicllian and Mapuche languages, i think you got to stress the L's very much. And based on what i was able to find, its more likely is KAL(is in California) rather than CULL(think pull but rather with a c instead of a p). The Kan part is more like KHAN as in Genghis Khan rather than Kin as in Pumpkin.
Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm just basing it off what i know and what i was able to find, and I'm not specialized into this branch of linguistics, I'm mainly a Indo-European guy, occasionally Arabo-Semitic

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

That is very helpful @Stegotyranno420 almost every thought I've had about this genus since it was described was about how to pronounce it.

[Bread]

More abelisaurs!!! Love the artwork for this new genus too.

Here is my only gripe.... Companies will still continue to produce Carnotaurus and ignore other abelisaurs.

[andrewsaurus rex]

yup......it's because they all look very much alike, most aren't all that big and carnotaurus has the cool horns and is much better known.  i'd love to see more variety with them too..

[HD-man]

Too my knowlegde, after studying Huicllian and Mapuche languages, i think you got to stress the L's very much. And based on what i was able to find, its more likely is KAL(is in California) rather than CULL(think pull but rather with a c instead of a p). The Kan part is more like KHAN as in Genghis Khan rather than Kin as in Pumpkin.
Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm just basing it off what i know and what i was able to find, and I'm not specialized into this branch of linguistics, I'm mainly a Indo-European guy, occasionally Arabo-Semitic

So loo-kal-khan? Just making sure.

[Subduction]

A friend of mine shared this discovery with me over the weekend. It's always exciting whenever new species get discovered! Thank you for sharing the links as well.

[Halichoeres]

Too my knowlegde, after studying Huicllian and Mapuche languages, i think you got to stress the L's very much. And based on what i was able to find, its more likely is KAL(is in California) rather than CULL(think pull but rather with a c instead of a p). The Kan part is more like KHAN as in Genghis Khan rather than Kin as in Pumpkin.
Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm just basing it off what i know and what i was able to find, and I'm not specialized into this branch of linguistics, I'm mainly a Indo-European guy, occasionally Arabo-Semitic

So loo-kal-khan? Just making sure.

That's almost right. The initial consonant is more like the "gli" in Italian. So it's more like lyoo-kal-khan. I find it easier to say if I articulate the L on my alveolar ridge rather than against my teeth, but your mileage may vary.

[Shonisaurus]

You comment that the skull is quite fragmentary but honestly it is much more complete than that of other species of theropod dinosaurs. I hope Collecta does in the next year? a figure of that terrible theropod. I understand that there is more life beyond the carnotaurus and even the majungasaurus. We need more abelisaurids well represented in the toy market like Llukalkan, even a very well-known dinosaur from India like the Rajasaurus, the latter being very poorly represented in the world of collecting, even in resin figures.