Gargoyleosaurus

Replica of a skeleton of Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum

• USA

• Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum Carpenter, Miles & Cloward, 1998

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

Features

The skull of Gargoyleosaurus was 29 inches long, the total length of the animal is estimated at 3 to 4 meters. He may have had the typical for the Ankylosauria Body with short legs and the existing bone plates back armor. There are also received some conical spines, its exact location is not known, however.

In the structure of the skull of this dinosaur displays some archaic features: the typical for the Ankylosauria hard palate is missing and the small, leaves shaped teeth reminiscent in structure to that of the Stegosauria. In some features it seems between the Ankylosauridae and Nodosauridae to mediate the two groups of Ankylosauria, thus he has the broad skull of Ankylosauridae while the elongated beak and lined with teeth premaxilla ( the bones at the end of the upper jaw ) typical Nodosauridae label are.

Like all Ankylosauria he was quadruped ( on all fours he moved away ) and fed on plants.

Discovery and designation

Fossils of Gargoyleosaurus ( holotype DMNH 27726, a nearly complete skull, parts of the postcranial skeleton and Dermalpanzerung ) were discovered in the U.S. state of Wyoming in the Morrison Formation and 1998 by Kenneth Carpenter et al. scientifically described. The name means Gargoyle (English gargoyle ) lizard. Only known type and therefore the type species is Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum. Carpenter et al. named it in their first description by J. Parker and T. Pinegar, the discoverers of the holotype, originally as G. parkpini. Kilborne and Carpenter 2005, the specific epithet corrected in a redescription under Article 31.1.2A the International Rules for Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN ), hence the Latin ending of the epithet must be denominated in the derivation of several people in the genitive plural in - orum. The finds are dated to the Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian ). This makes Gargoyleosaurus one of the few known from the Jurassic representatives of Ankylosauria that are otherwise only known from the Cretaceous period.

System

Because of its primitive features the exact systematic classification of Gargoyleosaurus is difficult. After a phylogenetic analysis of M. Vickaryous et al. it is classified within the Ankylosauria into the family of Ankylosauridae, where he is regarded as sister taxon of all other Ankylosauridae. According to other opinions he could ever stand at the base of Ankylosauria and thus neither Ankylosing nor Nodosauridae be attributed. K. Carpenter, however, expects him to the " Polacanthidae ".