A sharp thump and a tree was violently knocked down on the ground, next to the iguanodontoids. A giant demon advanced from the darkness with an immense mouth filled with teeth. The mouth was so big and was so close to me I had the impression a person could fit in there. The teeth were the size of bananas. The breath was so foul as a putrid slaughterhouse. The smell of death.
It’s not so difficult, looking at the Dino Hazard Carcharodontosaurus, to figure it right in the scene above, from Dino Hazard: Hidden Reality (Aureliano, 2020). Dino Hazard was an interesting – although unfortunately not very long-lived – project made in Brazil by palentiologist Tito Aureliano and artist Hugo Cafasso, and it was to include (other than books, comics and a video game) also figures. Very little of the planned series wa realized, at the end of the day: the idea was to feature a good chunk of the extinct Brazilian fauna on 1:20 scale, and there were also digital models of the figures of Santanaraptor placidus and Oxalaia (now Spinosaurus) quilombrensis. Only two models have seen the light of day… or rather, one and a half: Irritator sparked interest in this brand among collectors worldwide but, due to technical difficulties, Carcharodontosaurus was made in limited quantities and only for the Kickante campaign backers, making it rare and almost unknown outside Brazil.
But what does Carcharodontosaurus have to do with Brazil? Many readers would rather associate it with North Africa, with the famous Kem Kem formation together with Spinosaurus (es. Ibrahim et al. 2020). However, in some Brazilian assemblages, such as the Laje do Coringa site of the Alcântara Formation, were unearthed many teeth assigned to this theropod (Vilas-Boas et al., 1999; Medeiros & Schultz, 2002; Medeiros et al., 2019). Now, linking isolated teeth to a single species is quite hard, however tracing back the clade it belongs is easier (especially with characteristic teeth such as those of Carcharodontosauridae), and considering that Carcharodontosaur remains have been found in other coeval formations of South America and North Africa, it is not unlikely that Carcharodontosauridae were widespread in Brazil, too.
We asked the sculptor Hugo Cafasso what was the base for his model. His answer was: “The first version of the design I created was entirely based on Sereno’s neotype, but in the second version (the final version) I updated it with informations from T. chubutensis. At the time I remodeled Carcharodontosaurus there were already discussions about the issues of the model proposed by Sereno, but no one had yet presented a new model. So I talked to my colleagues Rafael Delcourt, Aline Ghilardi and Tito Aureliano and they guided me in the reconstruction of the updated design. We used the information on T. chubutensis due to its phylogenetic relationship with Carcharodontosaurus and the preservation of the cranial elements that were missing in the Carcharodontosaurus neotype.” Come si può vedere nelle immagini, la figura si sostiene grazie ad un disco nel quale va inserita la zampa posteriore sinistra. Essendo il modello realizzato in vinile cavo, questo è sufficiente ad impedire che cada, nonostante la posa lanciata in corsa.
We wrote extensively about the morphology of Carcharodontosaurus skull in our review of the GR Toys/Haolonggood model, so we won’t repeat ouselves here. As in other Carcharodontosauridae (see Witton, 2022), the maxillar of Carcharodontosaurus was deeply sculpted by vertical grooves and pits. In modern animals, this kind of bone roughness correlates with a tissue tightly adhered to the bones, be it large scales or hardened skin… to answer to one of the first criticisms of the model, that the snout was too “shrinkwrapped” (that means, skin and bones, a popular style in the 80s and 90s restorations). These correlates did not extend to either the nasal fossa or the margin of the anteorbital fenestra, and we can suppose that these area needed some flexibility during breathing, and cease just above the teeth, indicating a change in tissue. Along the upper side of the head, along the nasal and lacrimal, there are again grooves that may mean keratinized tissue, as it appears in the model.
While the first version of the Dino Hazard Carcharodontosaurus had the nape, shoulders and back up to the base of the tail (basically, the areas that in this model are painted with burnt sienna) covered with filaments, this version has a grainy texture, just like most of the body. Irregular “grains” (1-2 mm wide) were found in a patch of skin associated with a specimen of Allosaurus jimmadseni (UMNH VP C481) (Hendrickx et al. 2022).
The foot and metatarsal of the Dino Hazard Carcharodontosaurus are covered by larger scales than te rest of the body, covering the tarsus in an irregular pattern, while on the back of the toes there are large, flattened scales. Why this? The hindlimb of birds is covered by what is called a podoteca, made of three kinds of scales: scutate and scutellate scales, which are larger, rectangular in shape and regularly organized: they are the large flat scales that cover the upper side of the fingers and metatarsal that we see when a pigeon walks on the windowsill. Other smaller scales, the reticula, cover the rest of the indlimb. Although they are often featured in theropod restoration, as they make them more “bird-like”, it’s only with the discovery of the fossil of a Carcharodontosauridae – Concavenator corcovatus – in which the integument associated with the hindlimbs preserved (Cuesta et al. 2015), that it was possible to really check it. Concavenator has small, irregularly shaped scales associated with the inner side of the fourth metatarsal (located on the side of the tarsal area) and larger, hexagonal-shaped scales on the outer side, while large scales on the upper side and small scales on the lower side can be seen on the toes.
Another trait inferred from Concavenator in the Dino Hazard Carcharodontosaurus are the large, flat scales that run along the underside of the tail, all the way to the tip. In Concavenator, three of these rectangular scales – similar in appearance to those found on the underside of modern snakes – run under each vertebra. Applying the phylogenetic bracketing – the principle according to which in reconstructing an extinct organism the missing data must be deduced first from its closest relatives, and then from the most distant ones – there should be scales like this at least in all the Allosauroidea figures. Yet, only two sculptors minded this detail: Forest Rogers, with the Carnegie Collection (Safari LTD) Concavenator and Hugo Cafasso, sculptor of the Dino Hazard’s models. What can I say, a round of applause!
In the end, the Dino Hazard Carcharodontosaurus may not be easy to find outside its native country, but the attention paid by Hugo Cafasso in the restoration and the expertise of its craftsmanship deserves the effort spent to recover this unique model. If you know someone who lives in Brazil, it’s worth asking them to keep an eye open for you!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bell P.R., Hendrickx C. (2020) Epidermal complexity in the theropod dinosaur Juravenator from the Upper Jurassic of Germany. Palaeontology. 64 (2): 203–223
Cuesta E., Díaz-Martínez I., Ortega F., Sanz J. L. (2015) Did all theropods have chicken-like feet? First evidence of a non-avian dinosaur podotheca. Cretaceous Research. 56: 53−59
Cuesta E., Díaz-Martínez I., Ortega F., Sanz J. L. (2018) Axial osteology of Concavenator corcovatus (Theropoda; Carcharodontosauria) from the Lower Cretaceous of Spain. Cretaceous Research. 95: 106−120
Hendrickx C., Bell P.R., Pittman M., Milner A.R.C., Cuesta E., O’Connor J., Loewen M., Currie P.J., Mateus O., Kaye T.G., Delcourt R. (2022) Morphology and distribution of scales, dermal ossifications, and other non-feather integumentary structures in non-avialan theropod dinosaurs. Biological Reviews. 97 (3): 960–1004
Ibrahim N., Sereno P.C., Varricchio D.J., Martill D.M., Dutheil D. B., Unwin D.M., Baidder L., Larsson H.C.E., Zouhri S., Kaoukaya A. (2020) Geology and Paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of eastern Morocco. ZooKeys. 928: 1-216
Medeiros M.A., De Souza Arcanjo S.H., Lindoso R.M., De Souza Carvalho I., Pereira A., Pinheiro de Sousa E., Mendes I.D, Da Silva Mendes D.C. (2019) Cenomanian vertebrates of the São Luís Basin. in Contribuições à Geologia da Amazônia (vol 11), Sociedade Brasileira de Geologia, Núcleo Norte, Belém . 179 -187
Medeiros M.A., Schultz C.L. (2002) A fauna dinosauriana da Laje do coringa, Cretáceo Médiodo Nordeste do Brasil. Arquivos do MuseuNacional. Rio de Janeiro, v. 60, n. 3, 155-162
Vilas-Boas I., De Souza Carvalho I., Medeiros M.A., Ponties H. (1999) Dentes de Carcharodontosaurus (Dinosauria, Tyrannosauridae) do Cenomaniano, Bacia de Sao Luis (norte do Brasil). Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências. Riode Janeiro, v. 71, n. 4, 846-847
https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2022/07/attempted-adventures-in-dinosaur-facial.html