Edmontonia

Live reconstruction of Edmontonia the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

• North America

• Edmontonia longiceps ( Sternberg, 1928)
• Edmontonia rugosidens ( Gilmore, 1930)

Edmontonia is a genus of bird Beck dinosaurs. It is anticipated within the Ankylosauria to Nodosauridae and lived in the Upper Cretaceous in North America.

Features

Edmontonia reached a length of about 6 to 7 meters. He had the usual physique of Ankylosauria with the burly torso and powerful limbs, he moved quadruped ( on all fours ) away. As with all Ankylosauria the top of the head, neck, torso and the tail was covered with an armor of bony plates ( osteoderms ). Striking were the plates on the neck, which were rectangular and very wide. In addition, bone was present thorns which covered the sides of the animals. The tail did not end, as with all Nodosauridae in a bony club.

The skull was relatively narrow approximately 49 inches long and as with all Nodosauridae. He was also armored at the top, in addition, the cheek of a bone plate was covered. The small, leaf -shaped teeth were adapted to a plant-based diet. Unlike many older, urtümlicheren Nodosauridae the bony palate ( the front bone of the upper jaw ) was well developed and the premaxilla edentulous.

Discovery and designation

Fossil remains of Edmontonia - including several complete skulls and even large parts of the postcranial skeleton - have been found in many places in North America, as in the U.S. states of Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, but also in the Canadian province of Alberta as well as in Alaska. The name derives from the Edmonton Formation in southeastern Alberta (and not from the city of Edmonton ). The findings of Edmontonia be (mean Campanian to Maastrichtian ) dated to the Late Cretaceous to an age of around 80 to 66 million years.

System

Type species is the 1928 first described E. longiceps, 1930 with E. rugosidens a second type described. This is occasionally performed in a separate genus ( Chassternbergia ). The two species differ from one another in the skull proportions. A third, described as E. australis in 2000 on the basis of some bone plates species considered nomen dubium. The various fossil finds can but infer the existence of other, not yet described species of the genus Edmontonia. In the Denversaurus described in 1988 is based on current knowledge is a synonym of E. longiceps.

Edmontonia is expected within the Ankylosauria in the group of Nodosauridae. Its closest relative is probably Panoplosaurus, together they form an unnamed clade more sophisticated Nodosauridae who lived at the end of the Cretaceous period and disappeared in the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.