''Tarascosaurus'' ("

Tarasque The Tarasque is a creature from French mythology. According to the ''Golden Legend'', the beast had a lion-like head, a body protected by turtle-like carapace(s), six feet with bear-like claws, a serpent's tail, and could expel a poisonous bre ...

lizard") is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of abelisaurid theropod

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

from Late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It was a relatively small theropod measuring long.

Discovery

After having in 1988 identified an upper jaw bone found near

Pourcieux Pourcieux (; ) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. The small village provides a typical image of the Provence of Frédéric Mistral, with vine-grower's houses built around a cast ...

as belonging to a member of the

Abelisauridae Abelisauridae (meaning "Abel's lizards") is a family (or clade) of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Abelisaurids thrived during the Cretaceous period, on the ancient southern supercontinent of Gondwana, and today their fossil remains are fou ...

, French

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Éric Buffetaut Éric Buffetaut (born 19 November 1950) is a French paleontologist, author and researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique since 1976 where he is a Doctor of Science and Director of Research. Buffetaut is a specialist of fossil ...

reviewed the known remains of larger theropods found in the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

concluding they all were of abelisaurid affinity. Most of these fossils, earlier named as ''

Megalosaurus ''Megalosaurus'' (meaning "great lizard", from Ancient Greek, Greek , ', meaning 'big', 'tall' or 'great' and , ', meaning 'lizard') is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic Epoch (Bathonian stage, 166 ...

pannoniensis'', ''Megalosaurus hungaricus'' and ''Megalosaurus lonzeensis'', he considered to be ''

nomina dubia In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium,'' it may be impossible to determine whether a ...

'' because of the paucity of the material. However, when in the collection of the

University of Lyon The University of Lyon ( , or UdL) is a university system ( ''ComUE'') based in Lyon, France. It comprises 12 members and 9 associated institutions. The 3 main constituent universities in this center are: Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, which f ...

he discovered some theropod bones once excavated by an unknown collector at an

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

of a place named ''Lambeau du Beausset'', in the "

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimposed ...

Le Beausset Le Beausset (; ) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Var department The following is a list of the 153 Communes of France, communes of t ...

" (in French: ''synclinal du Beausset''), Buffetaut and Jean Le Loeuff named and described these in 1991 as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''Tarascosaurus salluvicus''. The generic name is derived from the ''

'' or ''Tarasca'', a devouring monster from

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

and Spanish

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

refers to the Salluvii, a Gallic tribe in Antiquity inhabiting the area near

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

PSL 330201 was found in the Fuvelian Beds, dating from the lower

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campa ...

. It consists of the upper part of a thigh bone, long. PSL 330202, consisting of two

dorsal vertebra In vertebrates, thoracic vertebrae compose the middle segment of the vertebral column, between the cervical vertebrae and the lumbar vertebrae. In humans, there are twelve thoracic vertebrae of intermediate size between the cervical and lumbar ve ...

e, was made a

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype (biology), isotype ...

; these bones may belong to the same individual. Referred was PSL 330203, a damaged tail vertebra. The

femur The femur (; : femurs or femora ), or thigh bone is the only long bone, bone in the thigh — the region of the lower limb between the hip and the knee. In many quadrupeds, four-legged animals the femur is the upper bone of the hindleg. The Femo ...

, with an undamaged length estimated at , indicates a body length of . ''Tarascosaurus'' was placed in the Abelisauridae in 1991. It was then seen as the only known abelisaurid from the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

apart from '' Betasuchus'' of the

Maastrichtian The Maastrichtian ( ) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age (uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage) of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or Upper Cretaceous series (s ...

of the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

but since then more species of abelisaurids have been found in the northern hemisphere. However, in 2003,

Ronan Allain {{Short pages monitor