Afrovenator

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Afrovenator

Zoo Tek Phoenix

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Author: Moondawg

Keywords: extinct animals

Release Date: Oct 2 2009

Current AfrovenatorMD2009.ztd dated 2 October 2009

File Size: 10.67mb

Compatibility: DD or CC

Description: Afrovenator ("African hunter") is a genus of megalosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of northern Africa.
It was a bipedal predator, with a mouthful of sharp teeth and three claws on each hand. Judging from the one skeleton known, this dinosaur was approximately 30 feet (9 meters) long from snout to tail tip.

The generic name comes from the Latin prefix afro- ("from Africa") venator ("hunter"). There is one named species, A. abakensis. The name refers to its predatory nature, and its location in Africa, specifically from In Abaka, the Tuareg name for the region of Niger where the fossils were found. The original description of both genus and species is found in a 1994 paper which appeared in the prestigious journal Science. The primary author was well-known American paleontologist Paul Sereno, with Jeffrey Wilson, Hans Larsson, Didier Dutheil, and Hans-Dieter Sues as coauthors.

The remains of Afrovenator were discovered in the Tiourarén Formation of the department of Agadez in Niger. The Tiourarén most likely represents the Hauterivian to Barremian stages of the Early Cretaceous Period, or approximately 136 to 125 million years ago (Sereno et al. 1994). The sauropod Jobaria, whose remains were first mentioned in the same paper which named Afrovenator, is also known from this formation.

Afrovenator is known from a single nearly complete skeleton, featuring most of the skull (minus the mandible, or lower jaw), parts of the spinal column, hands, and forelimbs, a nearly complete pelvis, and complete hind limbs. This skeleton is housed at the University of Chicago.

Most analyses place Afrovenator within Megalosauridae, which was formerly a "wastebasket family" which contained many large and hard-to-classify theropods, but has since been redefined in a meaningful way, as a sister taxon to the family Spinosauridae within the Spinosauroidea.

A 2002 analysis, focused mainly on the noasaurids, found Afrovenator to be a basal megalosaurid. However, it did not include Dubreuillosaurus (formerly Poekilopleuron valesdunesis), which could affect the results in that region of the cladogram (Carrano et al. 2002).

Other recent, more complete, cladistic analyses show Afrovenator in a subfamily of Megalosauridae with Eustreptospondylus and Dubreuillosaurus. This subfamily is either called Megalosaurinae (Allain 2002) or Eustreptospondylinae (Holtz et al. 2004). The latter study also includes Piatnitzkysaurus in this subfamily.

A few alternative hypotheses have been presented for Afrovenator's relationships.

In Sereno's original description, Afrovenator was found to be a basal spinosauroid (he uses the name "Torvosauroidea"), outside of Spinosauridae and Megalosauridae (which he calls "Torvosauridae") (Sereno et al. 1994).

Finally, another recent study places Afrovenator outside of Spinosauroidea completely, and instead finds it more closely related to Allosaurus (Rauhut 2003). This is the only study to draw this conclusion.

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Additional info:

AfrovenatorMD2009.ztd                        uca: 1D83B057 dated 2 October 2009

Results From Configuration Checking:

1d83b057.uca date: Fri Oct 02 18:29:40 2009
No Errors or Warnings to show.
Animal Type: 1D83B057

Afrovenator

It was a bipedal predator, with a mouthful of sharp teeth and three claws on
each hand. Judging from the one skeleton known, this dinosaur was
approximately 30 feet (9 meters) long from snout to tail tip.
    (plus 9 other paragraphs)

Animal Characteristics:

Habitat: Rainforest; Location: Africa; Era: Cretaceous
Minimum happiness needed for chance of breeding: 97.
Preferred shelter: Dinosaur Cave (DD).
Animal can jump.
Animal can climb cliffs.
Cannot be used in original Zoo Tycoon: cKeeperFoodType (7) is not 0 to 5.

Exhibit Preferences:

Foliage:
Mangrove Tree, Elephant Ear Tree, Foxtail Palm Tree, Rainforest Bush
Rainforest Fern, Orchid Tree, Thouarsus Cycad Tree (DD), Fern Bush (DD)
Leptocycas Tree (DD), Williamsonia Tree (DD), Fallen Rainforest Tree (ES)
Rainforest Stump (ES), Rafflesia (ES), Giant Ficus Tree (ES)
Durian Tree (ES)

Rocks:
Large Rock, Large Rock - 1, Large Rock - 2, Large Rock - 3, Large Rock - 4
Small Rock - Medium, Small Rock - Small, Small Rock - 7, Small Rock - 8
Small Rock - 9, Stone Ruins, Rainforest Rock - Formation
Mossy Rainforest Rock (ES), Limestone Rock (ES)

Other specifically liked items:
Waterfall Rock - Formation, Jungle Rock - Formation

Exhibit Construction:

Number of animals allowed per exhibit: 1-3 with 150 squares for each adult.

Exhibit size (for 2 adults): 300 grid squares

Terrain (for exhibit with 300 grid squares):
210 Rainforest Floor, 15 Savannah Grass, 60 Grass, 15 Fresh Water

Foliage (for exhibit with 300 grid squares):
15 grid squares should contain foliage.
Foliage that would give the most happiness: Fern Bush (DD)
Since this is a small plant, greatest happiness will occur
if each of the 15 grid squares contains 4 of this plant.

Rocks (for exhibit with 300 grid squares):
3 Stone Ruins, which is its most liked rock.