Shamosaurus

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Shamosaurus
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Extinct (fossil)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Thyreophora
Infraorder:	Ankylosauria
Family:	Ankylosauridae
Genus:	Shamosaurus
Species:	S. scutatus

Binomial name

Shamosaurus scutatus
Tumanova, 1983

Shamosaurus is the name given to a genus of dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. It was an ankylosaurid dinosaur from Mongolia.

[edit] Shamosaurus and Gobisaurus

Shamosaurus scutatus shares many cranial similarities with Gobisaurus domoculus, including a rounded squamosal, large elliptical orbital fenestrae and external nares, a deltoid dorsal profile with a narrow rostrum, quadratojugal protuberances, and caudolaterally directed paroccipital processes. But the two taxa may be distinguished by differences in the length of the maxillary tooth row, an unfused basipterygoid-pterygoid process in Gobisaurus, the presence on an elongate vomerine premaxillary process in Gobisaurus, and the presence of cranial sculpting in Shamosaurus, but not in Gobisaurus.

[edit] References

Matthew K. Vickaryous, Anthony P. Russell, Philip J. Currie, and Xi-Jin Zhao. 2001. A new ankylosaurid (Dinosauria: Ankylosauria) from the Lower Cretaceous of China, with comments on ankylosaurian relationships. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences/Rev. can. sci. Terre 38(12):1767-1780.
Vickaryous, Maryanska, and Weishampel 2004. Chapter Seventeen: Ankylosauria. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.