Outline: a typical ankylosaur
Akainacephalus
"thorn head"
Type species Akainacephalus johnsoni
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ankylosaurs, Ankylosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Wiersma and Irmis 2018
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Akainacephalus
What it was like
Akainacephalus was an ankylosaur, a low, armored plant eater with a club on its tail. Its skull was covered in spiky, cone-shaped bumps. It was more like Asian ankylosaurs than its North American neighbors, which suggests its ancestors came from Asia.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Utah. It comes from the Kaiparowits Formation, where it shared the land with the tyrannosaur Teratophoneus, the horned Kosmoceratops and Utahceratops, and the duckbill Gryposaurus.
How it was found
Wiersma and Irmis named Akainacephalus in 2018. The type species is Akainacephalus johnsoni.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Ankylosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: J. P. Wiersma and R. B. Irmis. 2018. A new southern Laramidian ankylosaurid, Akainacephalus johnsoni gen. et sp. nov., from the upper Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of southern Utah, USA. PeerJ 6(e5016)