All Topics  
Ankylosauria

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Ankylosauria
 
 
  Topics Ankylosauria Topic Home

Ankylosauria is a group of herbivorous dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
s of the order Ornithischia
Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivore dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Ancient Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'....
. It includes the great majority of dinosaurs with armor
Armour (zoology)

Armour in animals is external or superficial protection against attack by predators, formed as part of the body , usually through the hardening of body tissues, outgrowths or secretions....
 in the form of bony osteoderms. Ankylosaurs were bulky quadruped
Quadruped

Quadrupedalism is a form of Terrestrial locomotion in animals using four limbs or leg . An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet" ....
s, with short, powerful limbs. They are first known to have appeared in the early Jurassic Period of China
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
, and persisted until the end of the Cretaceous Period. They have been found on every continent except Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. The first dinosaur ever discovered in Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
 was the ankylosaurian Antarctopelta
Antarctopelta

Antarctopelta was a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur with one known species, A. oliveroi, which lived in Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous Period....
, fossils of which were recovered from Ross Island
Ross Island

Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound....
 in 1986.

Ankylosauria was first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn

Henry Fairfield Osborn was an United States geologist, paleontologist, and Eugenics, "a first-rate science administrator and a third-rate scientist."...
 in 1923.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Ankylosauria'
Start a new discussion about 'Ankylosauria'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Ankylosauria is a group of herbivorous dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
s of the order Ornithischia
Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivore dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Ancient Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'....
. It includes the great majority of dinosaurs with armor
Armour (zoology)

Armour in animals is external or superficial protection against attack by predators, formed as part of the body , usually through the hardening of body tissues, outgrowths or secretions....
 in the form of bony osteoderms. Ankylosaurs were bulky quadruped
Quadruped

Quadrupedalism is a form of Terrestrial locomotion in animals using four limbs or leg . An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet" ....
s, with short, powerful limbs. They are first known to have appeared in the early Jurassic Period of China
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
, and persisted until the end of the Cretaceous Period. They have been found on every continent except Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. The first dinosaur ever discovered in Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
 was the ankylosaurian Antarctopelta
Antarctopelta

Antarctopelta was a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur with one known species, A. oliveroi, which lived in Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous Period....
, fossils of which were recovered from Ross Island
Ross Island

Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound....
 in 1986.

Ankylosauria was first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn
Henry Fairfield Osborn

Henry Fairfield Osborn was an United States geologist, paleontologist, and Eugenics, "a first-rate science administrator and a third-rate scientist."...
 in 1923. In the Linnaean classification system, the group is usually considered a suborder or an infraorder. It is contained within the group Thyreophora
Thyreophora

The Thyreophora were a subgroup of the ornithischian dinosaurs. They were Armour herbivorous dinosaurs, living from the early Jurassic until the end of the Cretaceous....
, which also includes the stegosaurs, armored dinosaurs known for their combination of plates and spikes.

Classification

Ankylosauria is split into two families
Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
, Nodosauridae
Nodosauridae

Nodosauridae is a family of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, from the Cretaceous Period of what are now North America, Asia, Australia, Antarctica and Europe....
 (the nodosaurids) and Ankylosauridae
Ankylosauridae

An ankylosaurid is a member of the Ankylosauridae family of thyreophora that evolved 125 million years ago and became extinct 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event....
 (the ankylosaurids). The big difference is that most ankylosaurids (except the "polacanthines") have bony clubs
Club (zoology)

In zoology, a club is a bony mass at the end of the tail of some dinosaurs and of some mammals, most notably the Ankylosauridae and the glyptodonts....
 at the end of their tails, which nodosaurids lack.

The nodosaurids had narrow heads, and frequently had large spikes protruding from their bodies. This group traditionally includes Nodosaurus
Nodosaurus

Nodosaurus was a herbivore dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the fossils of which are found in North America. Two incomplete specimens have been discovered in Wyoming and Kansas, and no skulls....
, Edmontonia
Edmontonia

Edmontonia was an Armour dinosaur, a part of the nodosaur family from the Late Cretaceous Period . It is named after the Edmonton Formation , the unit of rock it was found in....
, and Sauropelta
Sauropelta

Sauropelta is a genus of nodosaurid dinosaur that existed in the Early Cretaceous Period of North America. One species has been named although others may have existed....
.

The polacanthines, an intermediate group sometimes placed in their own family, were once placed in the Nodosauridae, due to their lack of tail clubs. More recently, it has been found that they were more closely related to the ankylosaurids and, by most cladistic definitions, are members of that family. The polacanthines include Hylaeosaurus
Hylaeosaurus

Hylaeosaurus , from the Ancient Greek words hyle/??? "forest" and saurus/sa???? "lizard", is the most obscure of the three animals used by Sir Richard Owen to first define the new group Dinosauria, in 1842....
, Polacanthus
Polacanthus

Polacanthus, deriving its name from the Ancient Greek poly-/p???- "many" and acantha/a?a??a "thorn" or "prickle", was an early armored, spiked, plant-eating ankylosaur from the early Cretaceous period....
 and Mymoorapelta
Mymoorapelta

Mymoorapelta is an ankylosaur from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado. The taxon is known from portions of a disarticulated skull, parts of three different skeletons and other postcranial remains....
. Opinions range from them belonging to their own family, the Polocanthidae, distinct from the other two or being a subfamily of Ankylosaurs, to some researchers questioning their status as a discrete group.

The traditional ankylosaurids are from later in the Cretaceous
Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
. They had much wider bodies and have even been discovered with bony eyelids. The large clubs at the end of their tails were probably used in self-defence, and presumably were swung at predators. This family included Ankylosaurus
Ankylosaurus

Ankylosaurus is a genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur, containing one species, A. magniventris. Fossils of Ankylosaurus are found in geologic formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period in western North America....
, Euoplocephalus
Euoplocephalus

Euoplocephalus meaning 'well-armored head' was one of the largest genus of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, at about the size of a small elephant....
, and Pinacosaurus
Pinacosaurus

Pinacosaurus is a genus of medium-sized ankylosaur dinosaurs that lived from the late Santonian to the late Campanian faunal stage of the late Cretaceous Period , in Mongolia and People's Republic of China....
.

In 1997, Carpenter
Kenneth Carpenter

Kenneth Carpenter is a Paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and author or co-author of a number of books on dinosaurs and Mesozoic life....
 defined the clade Ankylosauria as all thyreophorans closer to Ankylosaurus than to Stegosaurus (a definition followed by most paleontologists today, including Sereno, 2005). This "stem-based" definition means that the primitive armored dinosaur Scelidosaurus
Scelidosaurus

Scelidosaurus is a genus of quadrupedal, lightly plated, Herbivore dinosaur about 4 metres long . It lived during the Early Jurassic Period , during the Hettangian to Sinemurian faunal stage around 208 to 194 mya ....
, which is slightly closer to ankylosaurids than to stegosaurids, is technically a member of Ankylosauria. Upon the discovery of Bienosaurus
Bienosaurus

Bienosaurus was a dinosaur from the Early Jurassic. The genus was a Ankylosauria from the Lower Lufeng Formation in Yunnan Province in China....
, Dong Zhiming
Dong Zhiming

Dong Zhiming , from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, is one of China's leading paleontologists. He began working at the IVPP in 1962, learning from Yang Zhongjian who was director at the time....
 (2001) erected the family Scelidosauridae for both of these primitive ankylosaurs.

Taxonomy

A simplified version of one possible classification follows:

  • Order Ornithischia
    Ornithischia

    Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivore dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Ancient Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'....
     (the "bird hipped" dinosaurs)
    • Suborder Thyreophora
      Thyreophora

      The Thyreophora were a subgroup of the ornithischian dinosaurs. They were Armour herbivorous dinosaurs, living from the early Jurassic until the end of the Cretaceous....
       (armored herbivore
      Herbivore

      Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
      s)
      • Infraorder Ankylosauria (the tanks)
        • Family Scelidosauridae
          • Scelidosaurus
            Scelidosaurus

            Scelidosaurus is a genus of quadrupedal, lightly plated, Herbivore dinosaur about 4 metres long . It lived during the Early Jurassic Period , during the Hettangian to Sinemurian faunal stage around 208 to 194 mya ....
          • Bienosaurus
            Bienosaurus

            Bienosaurus was a dinosaur from the Early Jurassic. The genus was a Ankylosauria from the Lower Lufeng Formation in Yunnan Province in China....
        • Minmi
          Minmi (dinosaur)

          Minmi, named for Minmi Crossing, Australia , is a genus of small ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 119 to 113 million years ago....
        • Antarctopelta
          Antarctopelta

          Antarctopelta was a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur with one known species, A. oliveroi, which lived in Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous Period....
        • Family Nodosauridae
          Nodosauridae

          Nodosauridae is a family of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, from the Cretaceous Period of what are now North America, Asia, Australia, Antarctica and Europe....
        • Family Ankylosauridae
          Ankylosauridae

          An ankylosaurid is a member of the Ankylosauridae family of thyreophora that evolved 125 million years ago and became extinct 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event....
          • ?Subfamily Polacanthinae
          • Subfamily Ankylosaurinae (tail clubs)


External links

  • at DinoData