Goyocephale

Skull of Goyocephale lattimorei

• Mongolia

Goyocephale is a genus of bird Beck dinosaur ( Ornithischia ) from the group of Pachycephalosauria. He was an estimated 2 meters in length a rather small Pachycephalosaurier, at the same time he is one of the most completely preserved representatives of this group. Only species described is G. lattimorei.

Features

Goyocephale was like all Pachycephalosaurier characterized by the thickened skull roof, from the frontal bone ( frontal ) and the parietal ( parietal ) was formed. He counts to the flat -headed representatives of this group, in which the skull roof was not arched and well developed upper cranial window of the temporal region. To speculate on the function of this cranium see function of the cranial vault in the Pachycephalosauria.

Like many other Pachycephalosauria had Goyocephale different types of teeth ( Heterodontie ). At the premaxilla, the foremost part of the upper jaw, sat three eckzahnähnliche teeth, one of which was the largest posterior. Behind gaped a large gap, the underlying teeth of the upper jaw were small and contributed triangular crowns. The front teeth of the lower jaw was also increased eckzahnähnlich and clearly; he pointed to a polygonal cross-section and on the outer edge a sharp edge. The remaining teeth of the lower jaw resembled the rear of the upper jaw. The exact function of these teeth is not known how all Pachycephalosaurier Goyocephale likely to have fed mainly vegetable, possibly supplemented by insects.

The hull was built rather sturdy, the vertebrae were reinforced by interlocking joints and the pelvis very wide. The forelimbs were short, reaching only about a quarter the length of the hind limbs. The lower legs were longer than the thigh, which suggests that these animals reached high speeds. They moved away biped ( on hind legs ).

Discovery and designation

The fossil remains of Goyocephale were discovered in the Mongolian province Öwörchangai Aimag and first described in 1982. The genus name is derived from the Mongolian goyo ( = " decorated " ) and the Greek kephale ( = " head"), a common name component of Pachycephalosauriern, from. Type species and only known species is G. lattimorei, the specific epithet honors Owen Lattimore, one in the McCarthy era as a spy accused U.S. professor and Mongolia travelers. The finds are (middle Campanian ) dated to the Late Cretaceous to an age of about 80 to 76 million years.

System

Traditionally Goyocephale was incorporated within the Pachycephalosauria in the Homalocephalidae, the group of primitive, flat face representative, whose most famous representative was Homalocephale and who faced the dome- headed, highly developed Pachycephalosauridae. The " Homalocephalidae " apply today however as paraphyletic, so do not represent a natural affinity group, as the Pachycephalosauridae have developed from them. A cladistic analysis of T. Maryańska et al. Goyocephale sees as primitive representatives of Pachycephalosauria and as the sister taxon Homalocephaloidea which include Homalocephale and the dome- headed representatives. With the discovery of Dracorex, a flat face, but sophisticated Pachycephalosaurier, the internal system is, however, falter. According to R. Sullivan, it is also conceivable that the development of dome -headed was too flat -headed animals, so the flat skull is the derived feature. A generally recognized systematic classification of Goyocephale in the Pachycephalosauria there is not.