In Depth
Paradoxically Micropachycephalosaurus is one of the smallest dinosaurs that we know about, yet it easily has one of the longest names. Micropachycephalosaurus was named from a partially preserved individual that in 1978 was perceived as what we now call a pachycephalosaur. However more modern analysis in the early portion of the twenty-first century noted that there is no evidence that Micropachycephalosaurus had a thickened skull roof, a key feature for a pachycephalosaur. Micropachycephalosaurus is today considered to more likely be a small ceratopsian dinosaur. This is not that far away from the original classification given that the ceratopsian and pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs are thought to have had a common ancestry within the ornithischian (bird hipped) dinosaurs.
Micropachycephalosaurus was a very small dinosaur, and one that was probably reliant upon speed and agility to try and evade predators such as dromaeosaurid and troodontid dinosaurs.
Further Reading
- [A new genus of Pachycephalosauria from Laiyang, Shantung]. - Vertebrata PalAsiatica 16(4):225-228. - Z. Dong - 1978. - A taxonomic review of the Pachycephalosauridae (Dinosauria: Ornithischia). - New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 35: 347-365. - R. M. Sullivan - 2006. - The small-bodied ornithischian dinosaurs Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis and Wannanosaurus yansiensis from the Late Cretaceous of China. - Cretaceous Research 30 (1): 63–77. - R. J. Butler & Q. Zhao - 2009.
