In Depth When this genus was first discovered, only the posterior portion of an individual ankylosaur remained to be studied. It is thought the anterior half had been previously exposed by erosion and was now lost, though part of the skull and teeth were found. The rear half of the dinosaur, including the tail and … Read more
In Depth Monkonosaurus is a dubious genus of stegosaur that lived in what is now Tibet during the late Jurassic. Monkonosaurus is considered to be dubious because only a few bones are known, and these may not be diagnostic enough to assign further fossil remains to. Further Reading - Phylogeny and Evolutionary Stages of Dinosauria. … Read more
In Depth Tianzhenosaurus is a genus of relatively small ankylosaurid dinosaur that lived in China during the late Cretaceous, though a specific point of time during the late Cretaceous is unavailable at the time of writing. There has however been speculation that Tianzhenosaurus may actually be synonymous with the genus Saichania. Further Reading - A … Read more
In Depth Today Cryptosaurus is considered to be a genus of ankylosaur, though because it is only known by a partial femur the genus is considered dubious because it would be almost impossible to assign further remains to the genus. When first described by Harry Govier Seeley, Cryptosaurus was thought to have been a relative … Read more
In Depth The name Tsagantegia means ‘of Tsagen-Teg’ which can be further translated to Englishto mean ‘of White Mountain’, and this is a reference to the location where the holotype skull of Tsagantegia was first discovered. Tsagantegia is currently represented by a single skull, the features of which clearly identify Tsagantegia as an ankylosaurid dinosaur. … Read more
In Depth At the time of its description, Mymoorapelta was the first Jurassic aged ankylosaur to be discovered in North America. Since this description however, other have questioned exactly what kind of ankylosaur Mymoorapelta was. Mymoorapelta does not have a tail club like ankylosaurids, meaning that it was more likely a nodosaur. The original describers … Read more
In Depth Lusitanosaurus is widely regarded as a dubious genus because of the lack of fossils that were used to describe it. The maxilla in question was originally thought to be from a stegosaur, but today it is considered to be from an ankylosaurian. Beyond this it is hard to infer anything further other than … Read more
In Depth One of the earliest known ankylosaurs, Shamosaurus is regarded as being very similar to Gobisaurus, however there is enough fine detail differences in the skulls of the two genera that palaeontologists are confident in assigning these two ankylosaurs as separate genera. Unfortunately there are not yet enough remains to confidently estimate the size … Read more
In Depth Not a lot can be said about Pawpawsaurus because so far it is only known by a skull. However, another nodosaur from the Paw Paw Formation is Texasetes (which includes post cranial remains), which has been suggested as being a synonym to Pawpawsaurus. If this is true, then the current Pawpawsaurus fossil material, … Read more
In Depth The holotype fossil of a partial jaw of Regnosaurus was recovered by Gideon Mantell who considered it to belong to an unknown large prehistoric animal. Mantell would later name his animal Igaunodon, though it was still referred to as a big lizard since the word dinosaur had still not been invented. Mantell realised … Read more