The size of Ekrixinatosaurus Novasii

Today, we take a look at the potentially giant Abelisaurid..

Ekrixinatosaurus Novasii; The explosion born lizard

"Potentially giant?"

Well yes, and i will show you why..

When news hit of this creature, the 10-11 meter; 7 ton figure burst onto the scene. But was it really that big?

The femoral of Ekrixinatosaurus is around 25.4 cm shorter (77.6 cm vs 103 cm) than femoral of Carnotaurus, but skull would be probably 25.4 cm longer. Carnotaurus is also probably bad model for Ekrixinatosaurus.  Even though it is widely exclaimed to be a good model, it most certainly is not. 

The 10-11meter figure comes from Juarez, Porfiri, and Calvo's paper, in which they listed various length estimates of different Abelisaurs:
Carnotaurus: 8-9m
Skorpiovenator: 6m
Majungasaurus: 6-7m.
Then they went on to discuss the skull morphology of Ekrixinatosaurus, and conclude:

"The maxilla of Ekrixinatosaurus exhibits a dorsally projected ascending ramus and a short rostral ramus, suggesting a relatively high skull, most similar to that of Skorpiovenator
and Carnotaurus rather than that in Majungasaurus or Rugops. Moreover, the relationship between the length of the maxilla and the transverse width of the skull roof implies an anteroposteriorly short skull, intermediate in length between those of Majungasaurus and Carnotaurus, and similar to that of Skorpiovenator. The precence of a short and high skull in Ekrixinatosaurus is in agreement with the phylogenetic position proposed by Canale and colleagues (2009), placing this form as the sister taxon of Skorpiovenator inside Brachyrostra, including also the other short snouted Aucasaurus
and Carnotaurus."

OK then, sounds like Skorpiovenator is the closest relative, let's use it to estimate how big Ekrixinatosaurus is, shall we?
But no, they don't. They used Carnotaurus AND Majungasaurus as their models, both of which have been proven to be not as closely related as Skorpiovenator is, by themselves!

With their logic:
"The length of the maxilla of Ekrixinatosaurus is 36 and 51 percent larger than those of Carnotaurus and Majungasaurus, respectively. A similar proportion is found in the skull roof, cervical and caudal vertebrae, and metatarsals and pedal phalanges. Thus, Ekrixinatosaurus is found to possess a tall and short snout, with an estimated body length of 10 – 11 m". However, they did not list any cervical or caudal vertebrae data for any of these species, so the conclusion is not valid until more data is provided. 
Using their logic, which is based on conflicting conclusion and insufficient data, Ekrixinatosaurus should be 9.06-12.24 meters long, not 10-11m.

However, there's many problems with the data they provided. They did not provided the specimen number of the 6-7 meter Majungasaurus. While the three individual specimens they provided has no overlapping material, the exact proportion is unknown. 

So how big would Ekrixinatosaurus be, if it was a scaled-up version of Skorpiovenator? Let's look at a couple of pictures:

A skull length of roughly 28cm, which is what Juarez and co. listed in their paper, I think they got the measurement from the drawing, not the actual fossil:

While cigarette sizes differ, they are usually 8-10cm long. So I feel comfortable saying Skorpiovenator has a skull length around 60cm. It's a 6 meter-ish animal with a 60cm skull. 
Using that ratio, Ekrixinatosaurus would be 8-9 meters long, not 10-11m; also the weight would be more in the 3-4 ton range rather then the 7-9 ton range.

Abelisaurid fans need not fear! A giant Species of Abelisaur has apparently been unearthed in the Tendaguru beds of Africa, and from initial reports...it appears enormous. Y'all on this forum know him as "Titanovenator Kenyaensis". We will have to wait and see what becomes of this theropod, and who knows? maybe he'll be featured in this series ;)