Ankylosaurinae is a subfamily of

ankylosaurid 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–Pal ...

dinosaurs, existing from the Early Cretaceous about 105 million years ago until the end of the

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'', ...

, about 66 mya. Many genera are included in the clade, such as '' Ankylosaurus'', ''

Pinacosaurus ''Pinacosaurus'' (meaning "Plank lizard") is a genus of ankylosaurid thyreophoran dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Campanian, roughly 75 million to 71 million years ago), mainly in Mongolia and China. The first r ...

'', '' Euoplocephalus'', and ''

Saichania ''Saichania'' (Mongolian meaning "beautiful one") is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of Mongolia and China. The first fossils of ''Saichania'' were found in the early 1970s in Mongolia. In 1977 the ...

''.

Features

Ankylosaurines are defined as being closer relatives to '' Ankylosaurus'' than to '' Shamosaurus''. Diagnostic features of ankylosaurines include the nuchal shelf that obscures the occiput in dorsal view, and the quadrate condyle which is obscured lightly by the quadratojugal boss.

Phylogeny

The following

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

is based on the 50% majority rule

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

of Arbour & Currie (2015):

References

Ankylosaurids Cretaceous dinosaurs {{ankylosaurian stub