Colepiocephale

• Alberta (Canada)

Colepiocephale is a little known genus of bird Beck dinosaur ( Ornithischia ) from the group of Pachycephalosauria. Only species described is C. lambei ( Sternberg, 1945).

From Colepiocephale only parts of the skull are known so far. The skull roof is made up of the coalesced frontal and parietal bone ( frontoparietal ) and is thickened remarkably like all Pachycephalosauriern. It is curved, the skull window the temporal region are closed, so this dinosaur is one of the dome- headed Pachycephalosauriern. Characteristic of Colepiocephale the strong downward bending of the parietal bone, as well as features in the construction of the shed leg is ( squamosal ). The function of the thickened calvarium, as with all Pachycephalosauriern controversial (see function of the cranial vault in the Pachycephalosauria ). Likewise, nothing is known about the other Body of this dinosaur.

The fossil remains of Colepiocephale were found in the Foremost Formation in the Canadian province of Alberta and in 1945 first described by Sternberg, however, still under the name Stegoceras lambei. Later, it was doubted whether it is at all is a valid type, but Robert Sullivan held in 2003 not only the type of valid, but also the differences to be significant enough to put the findings in a new genus Colepiocephale.

The remains of Colepiocephale be dated to the Late Cretaceous ( Campanian average ) with an age of about 80 to 76 million years. In order for this genus is one of the oldest unequivocally the Pachycephalosauriern related dinosaurs. Controversial findings of this dinosaur group, however, are much older.