Outline: a typical pachycephalosaur
Platytholus
"flat dome"
Type species Platytholus clemensi
- Lived
- 72 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Pachycephalosaurs, Pachycephalosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Horner et al. 2023
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
70 million years ago
Field notes
About Platytholus
What it was like
Platytholus was a pachycephalosaur, a plant eater with a thick dome of bone on its head. Its dome was unusually flat on top, which gave it its name. It is known from a single dome.
Its world
It lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, at the very end of the Cretaceous, in what is now Montana. It comes from the Hell Creek Formation, where it shared the land with Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, Edmontosaurus and the larger dome-head Pachycephalosaurus.
How it was found
Horner and colleagues named Platytholus in 2023. The type species is Platytholus clemensi.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Pachycephalosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: J. R. Horner, M. B. Goodwin, and D. C. Evans. 2023. A new pachycephalosaurid from the Hell Creek Formation, Garfield County, Montana, U.S.A. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 42(4):e2190369:1-14