In Depth
Known mostly from skulls, Prenocephale seems to have been a fairly large pachycephalosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia. The snout of Prenocephale is narrower than that of many other pachycephalosaur genera, suggesting that it was more of a selective browser.
While Prenocephale is considered to be a valid genus, two others named Sphaerotholus buchholtzae and Homalocephale, have been suggested to be synonyms of Prenocephale. Whereas Prenocephale has a dome on its head, Sphaerotholus buchholtzae and Homalocephale are flatter on top, but the advent of new discoveries in other genera seems to indicate that pachycephalosaurs did not develop the dome structure on their heads until they were adults. With this in mind, many palaeontologists have suggested that Sphaerotholus and Homalocephale are merely the juvenile and sub adult individuals of Prenocephale.
Another pachycephalosaur genus that may have lived alongside Prenocephale is Tylocephale.
Further Reading
- Texacephale langstoni, a new genus of pachycephalosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the upper Campanian Aguja Formation, southern Texas, USA, N. R. Longrich, J. Sankey & D. Tanke - 2010.
