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Nodosaurus
800px-Nodosaurus 500 TWA
Name Nodosaurus
Order Nodosauridae
Suborder Ankylosauridae
Class Tyreophora
Name Translation Knobbed lizard
Period Late Cretaceous (95-65 mya)
Location Wyoming (USA)
Diet Herbivorous
Date of Discovery 1889 by Othniel Charles Marsh

Nodosaurus (meaning "knobbed lizard") was a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the fossils of which are found in North America. Two incomplete specimens have been discovered in Wyoming and Kansas, and no skulls. One of the first armored dinosaurs to be discovered in North America, Nodosaurus was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1889.

Description[]

This nodosaurid ankylosaur was about 13 to 20 feet (4.0 to 6.1 meters) long. It was an ornithischian dinosaur with bony dermal plates covering the top of its body, and it may have had spikes along its side as well. The dermal plates were arranged in bands along its body, with narrow bands over the ribs alternating with wider plates in between. These wider plates were covered in regularly arranged bony nodules, which give the animal its scientific name. It had four short legs, five-toed feet, a short neck, and a long, stiff, clubless tail. The head was narrow, with a pointed snout, powerful jaws, and small teeth. It perhaps ate soft plants, as it would have been unable to chew tough, fibrous ones; or alternatively it may have processed the latter with gastroliths and its enormous intestinal apparatus. It is thought that without a club on its tail, Nodosaurus would have been left without much in terms of active defenses. When threatened, it probably dropped to the ground so that only its armored back and sides were exposed, much like modern-day hedgehogs. Various nodosaur scutes found in the Eastern US have a good chance of being identified as, and probably are, scutes of the genus Nodosaurus.

History of discovery[]

During the Bone Wars between palaeontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, Marsh sent his collector William Harlow Reed to the Cenomanian strata of the Frontier Formation of Albany County, Wyoming to collect fossil mammals and reptiles. Reed collected a partial postcranial skeleton (YPM VP 1815) on July 17, 1881 southeast of the productive Quarry 13, the skeleton including: 3 dorsal and 13 caudal vertebrae, 3 dorsal ribs, fragmentary forelimbs, a partial pelvis, femora, tibiae, partial left pes, and several osteoderms. One of the first armored dinosaurs to be discovered in North America, Nodosaurus textilis was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1889, the generic name meaning "knobbed lizard" and the specific name meaning "woven". Marsh assigned to genus to Stegosauria, but later assigned it to its own family, Nodosauridae, in 1890 based on the heavy dermal armor, solid bones, large forelimbs, and ungulate feet.[8] The type specimen remains the only definite specimen of Nodosaurus, though Stegopelta has been considered a synonym in the past,[5] it is most likely a distinct Struthiosaurinine. Richard Swan Lull did a more comprehensive description of Nodosaurus in 1921, who assigned the taxa Stegopelta, Hoplitosaurus, Hierosaurus, Ankylosaurus, and placed the British Polacanthus as a relative of the family.

Nodosaurus was confirmed to belong within Nodosaurinae in 2018 and was placed as the sister taxon to Acantholipan. The 2018 phylogenetic analysis of Rivera-Sylva and colleagues is below.

Nodosauridae
Sauroplites
Mymoorapelta
Dongyangopelta
Gastonia
Gargoyleosaurus
Polacanthinae
Hoplitosaurus
Polacanthus
Nodosaurinae
Peloroplites
Taohelong
Sauropelta
Acantholipan
Nodosaurus
Niobrarasaurus
Ahshislepelta
Tatankacephalus
Silvisaurus
CPC 273
Panoplosaurini
Animantarx
Panoplosaurus
Argentinian ankylosaur
Texasetes
Denversaurus
Edmontonia longiceps
Edmontonia rugosidens
Struthiosaurini
Hungarosaurus
Europelta
Pawpawsaurus
Stegopelta
Struthiosaurus languedocensis
Struthiosaurus transylvanicus
Struthiosaurus austriacus

In the Media[]

Gallery[]

Nodosaurus Scutes

Scutes of the holotype specimen

Nodosaurus/Gallery

The American journal of science (1921)

Pelvis of the holotype specimen

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