In Depth The problem with most dinosaur remains from the Cambridge Greensand is that they are incomplete representations of a living animal, and collections of fossils can often be the mixed up remains of more than one genus. In the past the genus of Anoplosaurus has been accused of being partially composed of ornithopod dinosaur … Read more
In Depth Texasetes was the first armoured nodosaurid dinosaur to be named from the Paw Paw Formation of Texas. However a year later a second genus of nodosaur called Pawpawsaurus was named, though only represented by a skull. There has now been suggestions that these two are the same genus, and if proven true, then … Read more
In Depth Silvisaurus is to date only known by a partial skeleton, and this is in a poor state of preservation that was weathered and trampled by cattle for a long time before it was discovered. Despite the poor state of preservation, Silvisaurus is considered to have been a primitive form of nodosaur that maybe … Read more
In Depth Sarcolestes is a genus of ankylosaur that lived in England during the mid-Jurassic. Unfortunately the only part of this dinosaur that is known is a lower jaw bone, so it is difficult to infer much more about this dinosaur. The lack of fossil remains has also cast doubt upon the validity of this … Read more
In Depth While Animantarx may not be the best known nodosaurid dinosaur, it is a contender for having one of the coolest dinosaur names. Unfortunately Animantarx is only known by an incomplete skull, lower jaw and some vertebrae, which means that reconstructions are reliant upon other nodosaur parts and a best guess by the reconstructions. … Read more
In Depth Cedarpelta is not a particularly famous ankylosaurid dinosaur, and it does not have a huge amount of fossils attributed to it. However it was the first ankylosaurid genera where a skull was found disarticulated (broken up during fossilisation). This might initially sound like a bad thing, but usually ankylosaurid skulls are found articulated, … Read more
In Depth Antarctopelta is the first armoured dinosaur known to have lived in Antarctica, though it should be pointed out that when Antarctopelta lived there, Antarctica was not covered in snow and ice. Antarctopelta was a kind of dinosaur called a nodosaur which means that in life it would have had a squat quadrupedal profile. … Read more
In Depth Although the name Anodontosaurus means ‘toothless lizard’, the teeth were only lost when the holotype skull of Anodontosaurus became compressed during fossilisation. Anodontosaurus was once synonymised with the genus Euoplocephalus, but a re-description of Dyoplosaurus in 2009 by Arbour et al. (also once synonymised with Euoplocephalus) led to the original Anodontosaurus fossils being … Read more
In Depth While palaeontologists are certain that Dracopelta was an ankylosaur, no one knows for certain if the genus was a nodosaurid or an actual ankylosaurid (an actual member of the Ankylosauridae). Nodosaurid is perhaps the most likely answer given that we know that out of these two groups nodosaurids appeared first. Ankylosaurids by contrast … Read more
In Depth Named in 1856 by Joseph Leidy on the description of teeth, Palaeoscincus is today considered a highly dubious genus of ankylosaur. While over the years other fossil material has been assigned to the genus, most of this material has now been reassigned to other dinosaur genera including the dinosaurs Euoplocephalus, Paranthodon and even … Read more