Rajasaurus

What it was like

Rajasaurus was a carnivorous abelisaurid with a single short horn on its forehead, likely used for display and for head-butting rivals rather than for hunting. Like other abelisaurids, it had a short, deep skull and probably relied on ambush rather than a long chase to catch prey.

Its exact size is hard to pin down because the skeleton found so far is incomplete, so estimates of its length still vary between researchers.

Its world

Rajasaurus lived from about 72 to 66 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now India. Its fossils come from the Lameta Formation. At the time, India had broken away from the rest of Gondwana and was drifting as its own landmass, though some animals may still have been able to reach it from nearby regions.

It shared its world with the long-necked sauropods Isisaurus, Antarctosaurus, and Jainosaurus, the theropods Indosaurus and Indosuchus, and the smaller predators Rahiolisaurus and Laevisuchus.

How it was found

Wilson and colleagues named Rajasaurus in 2003, from a partial skeleton that included the braincase, spine, hip, legs, and tail, a first for a theropod found in India. It remains known from that single find, making it one of the more important recent dinosaur discoveries from India.