''Dongyangopelta'' (meaning "Dongyang shield") is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

nodosaurid 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, w ...

, ankylosaurian, dinosaur known from the Early to Late Cretaceous Chaochuan Formation (Albian or Cenomanian stage) of

Dongyang () is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jinhua in Central Zhejiang Province, China. It covers an area of and administers eleven towns, one township, and six subdistricts. It is part of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Region. As ...

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jian ...

, China. The genus contains a single species, ''Dongyangopelta yangyanensis''.

Discovery and naming

Dongyangopelta was initially discovered by Zhiwei Yang in rocks of the Chaochuan Formation, in a hillside beside the Yangyan Village southeast of the Dongyang City, Zhejiang Province, China. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

''DYM F0136'' was excavated through a joint collaboration between the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, Institute of Geology Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Dongyang museum and the Yangyan Village. Notable individuals involved in the excavation and preparation of the holotype include Chaohe Yu and Guangming Luo. Dongyangopelta was described in 2013 on the basis of the holotype; a partial skeleton consisting of

dorsal vertebrae In vertebrates, thoracic vertebrae compose the middle segment of the vertebral column, between the cervical vertebrae and the lumbar vertebrae. In humans, there are twelve thoracic vertebrae and they are intermediate in size between the cervical ...

sacral vertebrae The sacrum (plural: ''sacra'' or ''sacrums''), in human anatomy, is a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine that forms by the fusing of the sacral vertebrae (S1S5) between ages 18 and 30. The sacrum situates at the upper, back part ...

ribs The rib cage, as an enclosure that comprises the ribs, vertebral column and sternum in the thorax of most vertebrates, protects vital organs such as the heart, lungs and great vessels. The sternum, together known as the thoracic cage, is a semi ...

, ossified tendons, a maximum of at least six variants of

osteoderm Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates, or other structures based in the dermis. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles and amphibians, including lizards, crocodilians, frogs, temnospondyls (extinc ...

, a partial right

Ilium Ilium or Ileum may refer to: Places and jurisdictions * Ilion (Asia Minor), former name of Troy * Ilium (Epirus), an ancient city in Epirus, Greece * Ilium, ancient name of Cestria (Epirus), an ancient city in Epirus, Greece * Ilium Building, a ...

, a complete right

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

and three

phalanges The phalanges (singular: ''phalanx'' ) are digital bones in the hands and feet of most vertebrates. In primates, the thumbs and big toes have two phalanges while the other digits have three phalanges. The phalanges are classed as long bones ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

''Dongyangopelta yangyanensis'', would be erected by Rongjun Chen, Wenjie Zheng, Yoichi Azuma, Masateru Shibata, Tianliang Lou, Qiang Jin and Xingsheng Jin in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

. The generic name, ''Dongyangopelta'', combines the Chinese word Dongyang, in reference to the Dongyang City and the greek word, ''pelta'', meaning "shield". The specific name, ''yangyanensis'', is in reference to the Yangyan Village.

Classification

In 2018, Rivera-Sylva and colleagues suggested that ''Dongyangopelta'' belonged to a clade of basal nodosaurids that also contained '' Sauroplites'' and ''

Mymoorapelta ''Mymoorapelta'' (Meaning "Vannetta Moore and Pete and Marilyn Mygatt's shield" after a combination of the names of the discoverers of the Mygatt-Moore Quarry that fossils were originally collected from, and pɛltə "shield") is a monospecific ...

'', Their cladogram is shown below:

References

Nodosaurids Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2013 Paleontology in Zhejiang Ornithischian genera {{ankylosaur-stub

Discovery and naming

Classification

See also

References