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Nodosaurus Scutes
''Nodosaurus'' (meaning "knobbed lizard") is a genus of herbivorous nodosaurid ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the fossils of which are found exclusively in the Frontier Formation in Wyoming. Description ''Nodosaurus'' grew up to roughly long and it was an ornithischian dinosaur with bony dermal plates covering the top of its body, and it may have had spikes along its side as well. The dermal plates were arranged in bands along its body, with narrow bands over the ribs alternating with wider plates in between. These wider plates were covered in regularly arranged bony nodules, which give the animal its scientific name. In 2010 Paul estimated its length at 6 meters (20 ft) and its weight at 3.5 tonnes (3.85 short tons). It had four short legs, five-toed feet, a short neck, and a long, stiff, clubless tail. The head was narrow, with a pointed snout, powerful jaws, and small teeth. It perhaps ate soft plants, as it would have been unable to chew tough, fib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the Latin word for the white limestone known as chalk. The chalk of northern France and the white cliffs of south-eastern England date from the Cretaceous Period. Climate During the Late Cretaceous, the climate was warmer than present, although throughout the period a cooling trend is evident. The tropics became restricted to equatorial regions and northern latitudes experienced markedly more seasonal climatic conditions. Geography Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and Ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations. Cope married his cousin and had one child; the family moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years. Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West, prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nodosaurinae
Nodosaurinae is a subfamily of nodosaurid ankylosaurs from the Cretaceous of Europe, North America, and South America. The group is defined as the largest clade containing '' Nodosaurus textilis'' but not ''Hylaeosaurus armatus'', '' Mymoorapelta maysi'', or ''Polacanthus foxii'', and was formally named in 2021 by Madzia and colleagues, who utilized the name of Othenio Abel in 1919, who created the term to unite ''Ankylosaurus'', ''Hierosaurus'' and ''Stegopelta''. The name has been significantly refined in content since Abel first used it to unite all quadrupedal, plate-armoured ornithischians, now including a significant number of taxa from the Early Cretaceous through Maastrichtian of Europe, North America, and Argentina. Previous informal definitions of the group described the clade as all taxa closer to ''Panoplosaurus'', or ''Panoplosaurus'' and ''Nodosaurus'', than to the early ankylosaurs ''Sarcolestes'', ''Hylaeosaurus'', ''Mymoorapelta'' or ''Polacanthus'', which was refle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polacanthus
''Polacanthus'', deriving its name from the Ancient Greek polys-/πολύς- "many" and akantha/ἄκανθα "thorn" or "prickle", is an early armoured, spiked, plant-eating ankylosaurian dinosaur from the early Cretaceous period of England. In the genus ''Polacanthus'' several species have been named but only the type species ''Polacanthus foxii'' is today seen as valid. ''Polacanthus'' was a quadrupedal ornithischian or "bird-hipped" dinosaur. It lived 130 to 125 million years ago in what is now western Europe.Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2012) ''Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages,''https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/dinoappendix/appendix.html ''Polacanthus foxii'' was named after a find on the Isle of Wight in 1865. There are not many fossil remains of this creature, and some important anatomical features, such as its skull, are poorly known. Early depictions often gave it a very generic head as it was only known from the rear half o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ankylosaurus
''Ankylosaurus'' is a genus of armored dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in geological formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period, about 68–66 million years ago, in western North America, making it among the last of the non-avian dinosaurs. It was named by Barnum Brown in 1908; it is monotypic, containing only ''A. magniventris''. The generic name means "fused" or "bent lizard", and the specific name means "great belly". A handful of specimens have been excavated to date, but a complete skeleton has not been discovered. Though other members of Ankylosauria are represented by more extensive fossil material, ''Ankylosaurus'' is often considered the archetypal member of its group, despite having some unusual features. Possibly the largest-known ankylosaurid, ''Ankylosaurus'' is estimated to have been between long and to have weighed between . It was quadrupedal, with a broad, robust body. It had a wide, low skull, with two horns pointing backward from the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hierosaurus
''Hierosaurus'' (meaning "sacred lizard") is an extinct genus of nodosaurid ankylosaur which lived during the Late Cretaceous 87 to 82 million years ago. Its fossils were found in the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Formation, in western Kansas, which would have been near the middle of the Western Interior Sea during the Late Cretaceous. It was a nodosaurid, an ankylosaur without a clubbed tail. The only species of this genus, ''Hierosaurus sternbergii'', was described by George Wieland on the basis of cranial and postcranial osteoderms collected by Charles Hazelius Sternberg in the Niobrara Formation of western Kansas. Nowadays, ''Hierosaurus'' is considered a ''nomen dubium'', and a second species, ''H. coleii'', was reassigned to the new genus ''Niobrarasaurus'' in 1995.M. K. Vickaryous, T. Maryanska, and D. B. Weishampel. 2004. Ankylosauria. In D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, and H. Osmolska (eds.), The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press, Ber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoplitosaurus
''Hoplitosaurus'' (meaning "Hoplite lizard") was a genus of armored dinosaur related to ''Polacanthus''. It was named from a partial skeleton found in the ?Barremian-age Lower Cretaceous Lakota Formation of Custer County, South Dakota. It is an obscure genus which has been subject to some misinterpretation of its damaged remains. Although there was a push to synonymize it with ''Polacanthus'' in the late 1980s-early 1990s, ''Hoplitosaurus'' has been accepted as a valid albeit poorly known genus in more recent reviews. History and Taxonomy The holotype specimen, USNM 4752, was discovered in 1898 by Nelson Horatio Darton, near Buffalo Gap Station, and consisted of ribs, caudal vertebrae, part of a right scapulocoracoid, parts of both humeri, a right femur, and a variety of armor (including tall spines).Lucas, F.A. (1901). A new dinosaur, ''Stegosaurus marshi'', from the Lower Cretaceous of South Dakota. ''Proceedings of the United States National Museum'' 23(1224):591-592.Gilmor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Swann Lull
Richard Swann Lull (November 6, 1867 – April 22, 1957) was an American paleontologist and Sterling Professor at Yale University who is largely remembered now for championing a non-Darwinian view of evolution, whereby mutation(s) could unlock presumed "genetic drives" that, over time, would lead populations to increasingly extreme phenotypes (and perhaps, ultimately, to extinction). Life Lull was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of naval officer Edward Phelps Lull and Elizabeth Burton, daughter of General Henry Burton. He married Clara Coles Boggs and he has a daughter Dorothy. He majored in zoology at Rutgers College where he received both his undergraduate and master's degrees (M.S. 1896). He worked for the Division of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture, but in 1894 became an assistant professor of zoology at the State Agricultural College in Amherst, Massachusetts (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst). Lull's interest in fossil foo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stegopelta
''Stegopelta'' (meaning "roofed shield") is a genus of struthiosaurin nodosaurid dinosaur. It is based on a partial skeleton from the latest Albian- earliest Cenomanian-age Lower and Upper Cretaceous Belle Fourche Member of the Frontier Formation of Fremont County, Wyoming, USA. History In 1905, Samuel Wendell Williston described FMNH UR88, a partial armored dinosaur skeleton consisting of a maxilla fragment, seven cervical and two dorsal vertebrae, part of a sacrum and both ilia, caudal vertebrae, parts of the scapulae, both humeral heads, portions of an ulna and both radii, a metacarpal, partial tibia, metatarsal, and armor including a shoulder spine and neck ring.Carpenter, K., and Kirkland, J.I. (1998). Review of Lower and middle Cretaceous ankylosaurs from North America. In: Lucas, S.G., Kirkland, J.I., and Estep, J.W. (eds.). ''Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems''. ''New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin'' 14:249-270. The specimen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nodosauridae
Nodosauridae is a family of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous period in what is now North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Description Nodosaurids, like their close relatives the ankylosaurids, were heavily armored dinosaurs adorned with rows of bony armor nodules and spines (osteoderms), which were covered in keratin sheaths. All nodosaurids, like other ankylosaurians, were medium-sized to large, heavily built, quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs, possessing small, leaf-shaped teeth. Unlike ankylosaurids, nodosaurids lacked mace-like tail clubs, instead having flexible tail tips. Many nodosaurids had spikes projecting outward from their shoulders. One particularly well-preserved nodosaurid "mummy", known as the Suncor nodosaur (''Borealopelta markmitchelli''), preserved a nearly complete set of armor in life position, as well as the keratin covering and mineralized remains of the underlying skin, which indicate reddish dorsal pigmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stegosauria
Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, predominantly in what is now North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. Their geographical origins are unclear; the earliest unequivocal stegosaurian, ''Huayangosaurus taibaii'', lived in China. Stegosaurians were armored dinosaurs (thyreophorans). Originally, they did not differ much from more primitive members of that group, being small, low-slung, running animals protected by armored scutes. An early evolutionary innovation was the development of spikes as defensive weapons. Later species, belonging to a subgroup called the Stegosauridae, became larger, and developed long hindlimbs that no longer allowed them to run. This increased the importance of active defence by the thagomizer, which could ward off even large predators because the tail was in a higher position, pointing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dinosauria
''The Dinosauria'' is an extensive book on dinosaurs, compiled by David B. Weishampel, Peter Dodson, and Halszka Osmólska. It has been published in 2 editions, with the first edition published in 1990, consisting of material from 23 scientists.Benson R. (2007), "Review: Weishampel D.B., Dodson P. & Osmolska H. 2004. ''The Dinosauria''", ''Geological Magazine'' 144(1): pp. 218-219 The second, greatly revised edition, was published in 2004, with material from 43 scientists. Both editions were published by University of California Press. The book covers a wide range of topics about dinosaurs, including their systematics, anatomy, and history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr .... It has been lauded as "the best scholarly reference work available on dinosaurs" and "an his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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