Texacephale
| Texacephale Temporal range: Late Campanian, 77Ma | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | †Pachycephalosauria |
| Family: | †Pachycephalosauridae |
| Genus: | †Texacephale Longrich, Sankey & Tanke, 2010 |
| Species: | † T. langstoni |
| Binomial name | |
| Texacephale langstoni Longrich et al., 2010 | |
Texacephale is a genus of basal pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. The type species is Texacephale langstoni; its fossils were discovered in the Aguja Formation and described in 2010 by Longrich, Sankey and Tanke. The generic name means Texas + "head" (cephale in Greek) in reference to its place of discovery, and the specific name honors Wann Langston.[1]
Discovery
The holotype specimen of Texacephale, LSUMNS 20010, is composed of fused frontals and parietals. A second specimen, LSUMNS 20012, is composed of an incomplete frontoparietal dome.[1] According to the team, the fossilized dome of the animal possessed a pair of flanges on the sides of the skull. The team interpreted these structures as "gears" that would help deal with stress on the bone during head-butting,[2] a hypothetical behavior that has been challenged by other authors in recent years.[3][4]
Phylogeny
Cladogram after Longrich, Sankey and Tanke (2010).[1]
| Pachycephalosauridae |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Longrich, N.R., Sankey, J., and Tanke, D. (2010). "Texacephale langstoni, a new genus of pachycephalosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the upper Campanian Aguja Formation, southern Texas, USA". Cretaceous Research 31 (2): 274–284. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2009.12.002.
- ↑ Head-ramming dino had ‘gears’ in skull
- ↑ Dinosaur Study Makes No Butts About It / Round-skull species didn't bash heads
- ↑ Cranial histology of pachycephalosaurs (Ornithischia: Marginocephalia) reveals transitory structures inconsistent with head-butting behavior
External links
- Texacephale from DinoData.org