Tsagantegia
Type species Tsagantegia longicranialis
- Lived
- 101 to 84 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ankylosaurs, Ankylosauridae
- Found in
- Mongolia
- Named by
- Tumanova 1993
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
90 million years ago
Habitat
Rivers crossed the landscape recorded in the Baynshire Formation of Mongolia. Its dinosaurs included Talarurus, Segnosaurus and Achillobator.
Field notes
About Tsagantegia
What it was like
Tsagantegia was an ankylosaur, a low, armored plant eater. It is known from a skull, which is long and flat with a wide snout.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Mongolia. It comes from the Baynshire Formation, where it shared the land with the armored Talarurus, the therizinosaur Segnosaurus and the dromaeosaur Achillobator.
How it was found
Tumanova named Tsagantegia in 1993. The type species is Tsagantegia longicranialis, meaning long skull.
Field gallery
More views of Tsagantegia
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
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Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Tsagantegia.
The evidence
The science behind Tsagantegia
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- Tsagantegia is known from a skull with a long, low outline.
- Its snout differs in shape from that of Talarurus, another ankylosaur from the same rocks.
Borrowed from relatives
- The body, limbs and tail are restored from better-known ankylosaurs such as Pinacosaurus and Talarurus.
Still unknown
- Its full body size and proportions.
- The arrangement of armor across its back and tail.
- Its color.
Discovery timeline
- 1993Named itTumanova
- 2015Family treeArbour & Currie
- 2020How it fedPark et al.
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Tsagantegia
Named it
Named a new armored dinosaur from Mongolia on the basis of its distinctive skull.
O novom pantsirnov dinozavre iz iugo-vostochnoy Gobi [A new armored dinosaur from Southeastern Gobi]. Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal 1993: 92-98
No link available
Family tree
Compared ankylosaurid anatomy and relationships, including Tsagantegia, to trace how these armored dinosaurs spread between continents.
Systematics, phylogeny and palaeobiogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 14: 385-444
Read the paper : Systematics, phylogeny and palaeobiogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs (opens in a new tab)How it fed
Compared snout shapes and proposed that Tsagantegia selected plants differently from the broader-snouted Talarurus.
Additional skulls of Talarurus plicatospineus (Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae) and implications for paleobiogeography and paleoecology of armored dinosaurs. Cretaceous Research 108: 104340
Read the paper : Additional skulls of Talarurus plicatospineus (Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae) and implications for paleobiogeography and paleoecology of armored dinosaurs (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Ankylosauridae
Sources: Wikidata