Outline: a typical ankylosaur
Ziapelta
"Zia shield"
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ankylosaurs, Ankylosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Arbour et al. 2014
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Ziapelta
What it was like
Ziapelta was an ankylosaur, a low, armored plant eater with a tail club. It had large, curved horns at the back of its skull and a pattern of bony tiles on its snout.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now New Mexico. It comes from the Kirtland Formation, where it shared the land with the tyrannosaur Bistahieversor, the horned Pentaceratops and the crested duckbill Parasaurolophus.
How it was found
Arbour and colleagues named Ziapelta in 2014. Its name comes from a sun symbol on the flag of New Mexico.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Ankylosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: V. M. Arbour, M. E. Burns, and R. M. Sullivan, S. G. Lucas, A. K. Cantrell, J. Fry, T. L. Suazo. 2014. A new ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous (Kirtlandian) of New Mexico with implications for ankylosaurid diversity in the Upper Cretaceous of western North America. PLoS ONE 9(9):e108804:1-14