Gargoyleosaurus

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Gargoyleosaurus
Replica of a skeleton of Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum

Replica of a skeleton of Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum

Temporal occurrence
Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian )
157.3 to 145 million years
Locations
Systematics
Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia)
Thyreophora
Eurypoda
Ankylosaurs (ankylosauria)
Ankylosauridae?
Gargoyleosaurus
Scientific name
Gargoyleosaurus
Carpenter , Miles & Cloward, 1998
Art
  • Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum
    Carpenter, Miles & Cloward, 1998

Gargoyleosaurus was a bird pelvis dinosaur from the group of Ankylosauria . He is one of the oldest and smallest known representatives of this group.

features

The skull of Gargoyleosaurus was 29 centimeters long, the total length of the animal is estimated to be 3 to 4 meters. It is likely to have had the body type typical of the Ankylosauria, with short legs and back armor made of bone plates. Some conical spines have also been preserved, the exact position of which is not known.

In the structure of the skull, this dinosaur shows some primeval features: the hard palate typical of the ankylosauria is missing and the small, leaf-shaped teeth are reminiscent of those of the stegosauria . In some features it seems to mediate between the Ankylosauridae and the Nodosauridae , the two groups of the Ankylosauriae: for example, it has the broad skull of the Ankylosauridae, while the elongated beak and the premaxillary (the bone at the end of the upper jaw) typical of the Nodosauridae -Marks are.

Like all ankylosauria, it was quadruped (it moved on all fours) and fed on plants.

Discovery and naming

Fossils of gargoyleosaurus ( holotype DMNH 27726, a nearly complete skull , parts of the postcranial skeleton and Dermalpanzerung) were in the US state of Wyoming in the lineup Morrison discovered and 1998 by Kenneth Carpenter et al. scientifically described . The name means gargoyles - (Engl. Gargoyle ) -Echse. The only known species and thus type species is Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum . Carpenter et al. named it in their first description after J. Parker and T. Pinegar, the discoverers of the holotype, originally as G. parkpini . In 2005 Kilborne and Carpenter corrected the type epithet in a new description in accordance with Article 31.1.2A of the International Rules for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), according to which the Latin ending of the epithet must be - orum when deriving from several people in the genetic plural . The finds are dated to the Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian ). This makes Gargoyleosaurus one of the few representatives of the ankylosauria known from the Jurassic, which are otherwise only known from the Cretaceous period .

Systematics

Due to its primeval characteristics, the exact systematic classification of Gargoyleosaurus is difficult. According to a phylogenetic study by M. Vickaryous et al. it is classified within the Ankylosauria in the family of the Ankylosauridae , where it is considered the sister taxon of all other Ankylosauridae. According to other opinions, it could even be at the base of the Ankylosauria and therefore neither Ankylo- nor Nodosauridae can be assigned. K. Carpenter, however, counts him to the " Polacanthidae ".

literature

further reading

  • Kenneth Carpenter , Clifford Miles, Karen Cloward: Skull of a Jurassic ankylosaur (Dinosauria). In: Nature . Vol. 393, No. 6687, 1998, pp. 782-783, doi: 10.1038 / 31684 .
  • Brandon M. Kilbourne, Kenneth Carpenter: Redescription of Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum, a polacanthid ankylosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Albany County, Wyoming. In: New Yearbook for Geology and Paleontology. Treatises. Vol. 237, No. 1, 2008, ISSN  0077-7749 , pp. 111-160, digitized .

Web links

Commons : Gargoyleosaurus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dougal Dixon: The World Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures. Lorenz, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7548-1730-7 , p. 229.