Nodocephalosaurus

• North America

• N. kirtlandensis Sullivan, 1999

Nodocephalosaurus is a known only from sparse fossil record genus of bird Beck dinosaurs from the group of Ankylosauria. She lived in the Upper Cretaceous in North America.

Features

So far from Nodocephalosaurus only parts of the skull known, similar to those of Asian Ankylar as Saichania and Tarchia. The top of the skull was armored with rounded bone plates at the back of the head were two small bony horns available. Similarly, the cheeks each had a bony outgrowth. In addition, the air channels that occur during some ankylosauruses found inside of the skull. About the rest of the body is not known, probably was Nodocephalosaurus like all Ankylar a quadrupeder herbivores whose body was covered with an armor of bony plates.

Discovery and classification

Fossil finds of Nodocephalosaurus were discovered in the Lower Kirtland Formation in the U.S. state of New Mexico and first described in 1999. The name means " head node lizard", type species and only known species is N. kirtlandensis. The finds are dated to the Late Cretaceous (late Campanian to early Maastrichtian ) at an age of about 76 to 69 million years.

Nodocephalosaurus is within the Ankylosauridae in the group of Ankylosaurinae, the younger, more highly developed representative, filed. Due to similarities with Tarchia and Saichania he is led in some classifications in a common clade with these two genera. Other sources such as Vickaryous et al. (2004) see the fossils found to be too sparse for an accurate classification and run it under " incertae sedis Ankylosaurinae ".