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Ziapelta
''Ziapelta'' is an extinct genus of ankylosaurid. Its fossils have been found in the Hunter Wash and De-na-zin members of the Kirtland Formation of Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) New Mexico. It was named in 2014, in a research paper led by ankylosaur researcher Victoria Arbour. There is a single species in the genus, ''Ziapelta sanjuanensis.'' The genus is named after the Zia sun symbol, a stylized sun with four groups of rays, having religious significance to the Zia people of New Mexico, and the iconic symbol on the state flag of New Mexico, and ''pelta'' (Latin), a small shield, in reference to the osteoderms found on all ankylosaurids. The specific name is in reference to San Juan County and the San Juan basin, where the fossils were found. Multiple specimens have been described to date, though the fossils are mostly from the front part of the animal. The adult length of ''Ziapelta'' is estimated at between and long, depending on whether the holotype was full-grown. It w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ziapelta Sanjuanensis 0108804 G001
''Ziapelta'' is an extinct genus of ankylosaurid. Its fossils have been found in the Hunter Wash and De-na-zin members of the Kirtland Formation of Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) New Mexico. It was named in 2014, in a research paper led by ankylosaur researcher Victoria Arbour. There is a single species in the genus, ''Ziapelta sanjuanensis.'' The genus is named after the Zia sun symbol, a stylized sun with four groups of rays, having religious significance to the Zia people of New Mexico, and the iconic symbol on the state flag of New Mexico, and ''pelta'' (Latin), a small shield, in reference to the osteoderms found on all ankylosaurids. The specific name is in reference to San Juan County and the San Juan basin, where the fossils were found. Multiple specimens have been described to date, though the fossils are mostly from the front part of the animal. The adult length of ''Ziapelta'' is estimated at between and long, depending on whether the holotype was full-grown. It was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nodocephalosaurus
''Nodocephalosaurus'' (meaning "knob headed lizard") is a monospecific genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur from New Mexico that lived during the Late Cretaceous (late Campanian to early Maastrichtian stage, 73.49 to 73.04 Ma) in what is now the De-na-zin member of the Kirtland Formation. The type and only species, ''Nodocephalosaurus kirtlandensis'', is known only from a partial skull. It was named in 1999 by Robert M. Sullivan. ''Nodocephalosaurus'' has an estimated length of 4.5 metres (15 feet) and weight of 1.5 tonnes (3,306 lbs).Paul, G.S., 2016, ''The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 2nd Edition'', Princeton University Press It is closely related and shares similar cranial anatomy to ''Akainacephalus''. Discovery and naming In 1995, a partial skull of an ankylosaur was discovered weathering out of a grey mudstone a few hundred metres west of a new ''Parasaurolophus'' site in the De-na-zin member of the Kirtland Formation, New Mexico. Robert M. Sullivan and Thomas E. William ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirtland Formation
The Kirtland Formation (originally the Kirtland Shale) is a sedimentary geological formation. Description The Kirtland Formation is the product of alluvial muds and overbank sand deposits from the many channels draining the coastal plain that existed on the inland seashore of North America, in the late Cretaceous period. It overlies the Fruitland Formation. It is found in the San Juan Basin in the states of New Mexico and Colorado, in the United States of America. The base of the Kirtland Formation and its lowest sub-unit, the Hunter Wash member, has been dated to 75.02 ± 0.13 Ma. Together with the upper part of the underlying Fruitland Formation, this contains fossils representing the Hunter Wash local fauna. The border between the Hunter Wash member and overlying Farmington member dates to approximately 74 million years ago. The top of the Farmington member and bottom of the overlying De-na-zin member has been radiometrically dated to 73.83 ± 0.18 Ma ago. The top of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Arbour
Victoria Megan Arbour is a Canadian evolutionary biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist at Royal BC Museum, where she is Curator of Palaeontology. An "expert on the armoured dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs", Arbour analyzes fossils and creates 3-D computer models. She named the possible pterosaur '' Gwawinapterus'' from Hornby Island, and a partial ornithischian dinosaur from Sustut Basin, British Columbia (now named ''Ferrisaurus''), and has participated in the naming of the ankylosaurs ''Zuul'', ''Zaraapelta'', ''Crichtonpelta'', and ''Ziapelta''. Early life and education Born in 1983, Arbour is from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her mother, a math teacher, and father, a soil scientist, supported her science interests. Arbour completed a B.Sc. Honours Thesis supervised by Milton Graves, ''An ornithischian dinosaur from the Sustut Basin, British Columbia, Canada'', and graduated from Dalhousie University in 2006. She completed her master's thesis, ''Evolution, biomechanics, and func ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scolosaurus
''Scolosaurus'' is an extinct genus of ankylosaurid dinosaurs within the subfamily Ankylosaurinae. It is known from the lower levels of the Dinosaur Park Formation and upper levels of the Oldman Formation in the Late Cretaceous (latest middle Campanian stage, about 76.5 Ma ago) of Alberta, Canada. It contains two species, ''S. cutleri'' and ''S. thronus''. The type species, ''S. cutleri'', measured up to in length and in body mass. Discovery ''Scolosaurus'' was named by Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás in 1928, based on holotype NHMUK R.5161, a nearly complete specimen that preserves the entire skeleton except for the distal end of the tail, the right forelimb, the right hindlimb, and the skull. The rare preservation of osteoderms and skin impression are also present. The fossil skeleton was discovered by William Edmund Cutler, an independent fossil collector in 1914 at Quarry 80 of the Deadlodge Canyon locality. It was collected from the bottom of the Dinosaur Park ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ankylosauridae
Ankylosauridae () is a family of armored dinosaurs within Ankylosauria, and is the sister group to Nodosauridae. The oldest known Ankylosaurids date to around 122 million years ago and went extinct 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. These animals were mainly herbivorous and were obligate quadrupeds, with leaf-shaped teeth and robust, scute-covered bodies. Ankylosaurids possess a distinctly domed and short snout, wedge-shaped osteoderms on their skull, scutes along their torso, and a tail club. Ankylosauridae is exclusively known from the northern hemisphere, with specimens found in western North America, Europe, and East Asia. The first discoveries within this family were of the genus ''Ankylosaurus'', by Peter Kaiser and Barnum Brown in Montana in 1906. Brown went on to name Ankylosauridae and the subfamily Ankylosaurinae in 1908. Anatomy Ankylosaurids are stout, solidly built, armoured dinosaurs. They possess accessory ossifications on c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Club (anatomy)
In zoology, a club is a bony mass at the end of the tail of some dinosaurs and of some mammals, most notably the ankylosaurids and the glyptodonts, as well as meiolaniid turtles. It is thought that this was a form of defensive armour or weapon that was used to defend against predators, much in the same way as a thagomizer, possessed by stegosaurids, though at least in glyptodonts it is hypothesized it was used in fighting for mating rights. Among dinosaurs, the club was present mainly in ankylosaurids, although sauropods like ''Shunosaurus'' also possessed a tail club. The tail club is most often depicted on ''Ankylosaurus'', especially in encounters with larger predators such as ''Tyrannosaurus''. Victoria Arbour has established that ankylosaurid tails could generate enough force to break bone during impacts. In a separate study, Arbour suggested tail clubs as well as large armoured herbivores as a whole evolve when animals are too large to hide and too small to avoid predation by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasaurolophus
''Parasaurolophus'' (; meaning "near crested lizard" in reference to '' Saurolophus)'' is a genus of herbivorous hadrosaurid ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America and possibly Asia during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 76.5–73 million years ago. It was a herbivore that walked both as a biped and as a quadruped. Three species are universally recognized: ''P. walkeri'' (the type species), ''P. tubicen'', and the short-crested ''P. cyrtocristatus''. Additionally, a fourth species, ''P. jiayinensis'', has been proposed, although it is more commonly placed in the separate genus ''Charonosaurus''. Remains are known from Alberta (Canada), New Mexico and Utah (United States), and possibly Heilongjiang (China). The genus was first described in 1922 by William Parks from a skull and partial skeleton found in Alberta. ''Parasaurolophus'' was a hadrosaurid, part of a diverse family of Cretaceous dinosaurs known for their range of bizarre head adornments wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentaceratops
''Pentaceratops'' ("five-horned face") is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur from the late Cretaceous Period of what is now North America. Fossils of this animal were first discovered in 1921, but the genus was named in 1923 when its type species, ''Pentaceratops sternbergii'', was described. ''Pentaceratops'' lived around 76–73 million years ago, its remains having been mostly found in the Kirtland Formation in the San Juan County, New Mexico, San Juan Basin in New Mexico. About a dozen skulls and skeletons have been uncovered, so anatomical understanding of ''Pentaceratops'' is fairly complete. One exceptionally large specimen later became its own genus, ''Titanoceratops'', due to its more derived morphology, similarities to ''Triceratops,'' and lack of unique characteristics shared with ''Pentaceratops''. ''Pentaceratops'' was about 6 meters (20 feet) long, and has been estimated to have weighed around . It had a short nose horn, two long brow horns, and long horns o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Campanian
The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous Epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campanian spans the time from 83.6 (± 0.2) to 72.1 (± 0.2) million years ago. It is preceded by the Santonian and it is followed by the Maastrichtian. The Campanian was an age when a worldwide sea level rise covered many coastal areas. The morphology of some of these areas has been preserved: it is an unconformity beneath a cover of marine sedimentary rocks. Etymology The Campanian was introduced in scientific literature by Henri Coquand in 1857. It is named after the French village of Champagne in the department of Charente-Maritime. The original type locality was a series of outcrop near the village of Aubeterre-sur-Dronne in the same region. Definition The base of the Campanian Stage is defined as a place in the stratigraphic column wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sphaerotholus
''Sphaerotholus'' is a genus of pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of the western United States and Canada. To date, three species have been described: the type species, ''S. goodwini'', from the Den-na-zin Member of the Kirtland Formation (Late Campanian) of San Juan County, New Mexico, San Juan County, New Mexico, USA; ''S. buchholtzae'', from the Hell Creek Formation (Late Maastrichtian) of western Carter County, Montana, Carter County, Montana, USA and the Frenchman Formation of Saskatchewan, Canada; and ''S. edmontonensis'', from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, Canada. History of discovery The etymology of ''Sphaerotholus'' is a combination of the Greek language, Greek ''sphaira'', meaning "ball", and ''tholos'', meaning "dome", and is a reference to the characteristically dome-shaped pachycephalosaurian skull (anatomy), skull. The survival of ''Sphaerotholus'' from the Campanian of New Mexico to the end of the Maastrichtian of Montana demonstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Juan Basin
The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly N-S and E-W. The San Juan Basin is an asymmetric structural depression in the Colorado Plateau province, with varying elevation and nearly in topographic relief. Its most striking features include Chaco Canyon (northwestern New Mexico, between Farmington and Santa Fe) and Chacra Mesa. The basin lies west of the Continental Divide, and its main drainage is the southwest- to west-flowing San Juan River, which eventually joins the Colorado River in Utah. Climate of the basin is arid to semiarid, with an annual precipitation of and an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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