Kem Kem dinosaur ilium

[Aurelius]

I received this Kem Kem ilium in the post today. It's a rather nice piece, if a little nibbled and in need of quite a lot of prep. As far as I can see, it's totally original with no restoration, but one repaired crack.

 

It was described as a juvenile spinosaurus ilium. I always take such descriptions with a very large pinch of salt. Obviously there were plenty of other dinosaurs in Kem Kem, so I suppose it could be from a fully-grown, but smaller species. I am confident that it's dinosaur and not crocodile, since croc iliums tend to be stockier, with the socket closed at one side. But I can't find any exact parallels to this one.

 

Has anybody seen anything like it? I know I may not be able to narrow it down, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TyBoy]

Troodon posted this a while ago of a Spinosaurid, unfortunately only one side available.   Since the outer leading edge of yours may not be complete  difficult to make a comparison. Nice pickup

[Aurelius]

Thanks TyBoy. I have seen that image, but I don't know a lot about dinosaur bones and how they might vary between juveniles/adults and that sort of thing.

 

I know it may be impossible to say anything about this specimen, but just in case, I'm going to tag @Troodon and @LordTrilobite, who, between them, seem to know almost everything

It's the last fossil I'll be able to buy for the foreseeable future, so it'd be good to learn all I can about it. And then I have to get the thick layer of glue off it and try to prep it.

[Haravex]

It's a decent fossil however I can recognise the seller by this item and lack of prep work and note that everything he sells is "spinosaurus" so your right to exercise caution, one way to establish if it is from a juvenile would be to look at the cortical of the ilium around 10 to 20x should do, looking for any evidence of immature bone development. With this said at aproxamitly 350mm I feel the chances are it is possible to belong to a smaller theropod.

 

Thanks Matt

[Haravex]

Found this it's from majungasaurus a large bodied abielsauirdae from Madagascar I see more similarities to this than spinosauridae also size is more comparable scale bar is 10cm 

 

[Aurelius]

30 minutes ago, Haravex said:

Found this it's from majungasaurus a large bodied abielsauirdae from Madagascar I see more similarities to this than spinosauridae also size is more comparable scale bar is 10cm 

 

 

 

That really does look a lot more like it, thanks! I'll have a dig round for some scientific papers on Abelisauridae later.

[LordTrilobite]

I wouldn't rule out either Spinosaurid or Abelisaurid at this point. It shows some similarities with both. Carcharodontosaurid does not seem to fit though.

 

But what I wanna know, is if that outer edge is intact or broken off. In other words, what is the original outline of the ilium. Is there only minor damage and is this close to the actual outer shape then I would lean more towards Abelisaurid. If there is more damage and it is unclear what the original shape was I would lean more towards Spinosaurid.

[Aurelius]

19 minutes ago, LordTrilobite said:

I wouldn't rule out either Spinosaurid or Abelisaurid at this point. It shows some similarities with both. Carcharodontosaurid does not seem to fit though.

 

But what I wanna know, is if that outer edge is intact or broken off. In other words, what is the original outline of the ilium. Is there only minor damage and is this close to the actual outer shape then I would lean more towards Abelisaurid. If there is more damage and it is unclear what the original shape was I would lean more towards Spinosaurid.

 

I would say the outer edge is 'nibbled'. That curved part in the centre of the outer edge is the original shape, so I'd imagine it being a little sleeker than a Spinosaurid, at least compared to those I've seen.