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 Fossils of Platypelta have for a long time been associated with the genus Euoplocephalus, yet in 2018, some of these fossils were given their own distinct genus by Penkalski in 2018. Platypelta was a medium sized ankylosaurine dinosaur that lived in North America during the late Cretaceous. Further Reading - Revised systematics … Read more
In Depth It is something of a paradox that one of the most popular dinosaurs of all time is understood by some of the most incomplete fossil remains. What can be gleaned from the available fossil material is that Ankylosaurus was one of if not the largest of the group. The incomplete fossil evidence however … 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 With its distinctive back plates, Stegosaurus is one of the best represented dinosaurs in popular culture today. Initially thought to just live in the USA, a partial skeleton discovered in 2006 places Stegosaurus in Portugal. This has significantly increased the known range of this animal and further reinforced the theory that North America … Read more
In Depth Paranthodon remains were first described when they were incorrectly included with the remains of a parieasaur named Anthodon. The inclusion of these remains also gave the incorrect identification for Anthodon as a dinosaur instead of a parieasaur until 1912 when Robert Broom separated an upper jaw from the genus. While Broom correctly identified … Read more
In Depth At the time of its description only known from a partial skull, Zaraapelta is a genus of ankylosaur that lived during the late Cretaceous. The Zaraapelta holotype skull was found in the Barun Goyot Formation of Mongolia, indicating that Zaraapelta shared the same ecosystem as two other ankylosaurid genera called Tarchia and Saichania. … Read more
In Depth In 1914 the palaeontologist Charles Whitney Gilmore described a new species of Stegosaurus which he named S. longispinus. The name was chosen as a reflection of the unusually large tail spines that were much longer than those seen in other Stegosaurus fossils. For many years however the validity of S. longispinus was called … 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 With study of Scelidosaurus going all of the way back until the mid-nineteenth century, Scelidosaurus is one of the oldest genera of dinosaur known. In addition to that, out of all the dinosaurs that are known from the British Isles, Scelidosaurus is represented by some of the most complete fossil material. Scelidosaurus was … Read more