Outline: a typical ankylosaur
Scolosaurus
SKOH-loh-SORE-us
"thorn lizard"
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- estimates range from 5 to 6 m (16 to 20 ft)
- Group
- Ankylosaurs, Ankylosauridae
- Found in
- Canada
- Named by
- Nopcsa 1928
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Scolosaurus
What it was like
Scolosaurus was an armored plant eater about 5 to 6 meters (16 to 20 feet) long. Bony plates and spikes covered its back, and its tail ended in a heavy bony club. It was low and wide, built to stand its ground rather than run.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta, Canada. Its bones come from the Dinosaur Park Formation, a land of rivers and coastal plains. There it lived alongside horned dinosaurs such as Styracosaurus and predators such as Gorgosaurus.
How it was found
Nopcsa named Scolosaurus in 1928. Its first skeleton is remarkable: it was found lying on its back with its armor still in place and impressions of skin around it. For many years it was thought to be the same animal as Euoplocephalus, but most scientists now treat it as a separate genus.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Ankylosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: B. F. Nopcsa. 1928. Palaeontological notes on reptiles. VI. Scolosaurus cutleri, a new dinosaur. Geologica Hungarica, Series Palaeontologica 1(1):54-74