Anodontosaurus
Name:
Anodontosaurus
(toothless lizard).
Phonetic: An-o-dont-o-sore-us.
Named By: Charles Mortram Sternberg - 1929.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Thyreophora, Ankylosauria, Ankylosauridae,
Ankylosaurinae.
Species: A. lambei (type),
A.
inceptus.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Unavailable.
Known locations: Canada, Alberta - Horseshoe
Canyon Formation.
Time period: Campanian/Maastrichtian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Skull and partial post
cranial remains.
Although
the name Anodontosaurus means ‘toothless
lizard’, the teeth were
only lost when the holotype skull of Anodontosaurus
became compressed
during fossilisation. Anodontosaurus was once
synonymised with the
genus Euoplocephalus,
but a re-description of Dyoplosaurus
in 2009
by Arbour et al. (also once synonymised with Euoplocephalus)
led
to the original Anodontosaurus fossils being
re-established as a
distinct genus by Victoria Arbour in 2010. New studies since this
time further support the description of Anodontosaurus
as a distinct
genus.
As
an ankylosaurid
dinosaur, Anodontosaurus would
have been a
quadrupedal herbivore that was covered in bony armour along the back
and sides while possessing a bony club on the end of its tail. These
things combined would have formed the main defence against late
Cretaceous predators.
Anodontosaurus
likely shared its habitat with the nodosaur Edmontonia,
ceratopsians
such as Anchiceratops
and Pachyrhinosaurus
and hadrosaurs
such as
Hypacrosaurus
and Saurolophus.
Other kinds of dinosaur such as
Ornithomimus
were also present, but it was the larger predators
such as tyrannosaurs
like Albertosaurus
that Anodontosaurus would have
to keep a special watch for.
Further reading
- A toothless armoured dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of
Alberta, Charles Mortram Sternberg - 1929.
- A redescription of the ankylosaurid dinosaur Dyoplosaurus
acutosquameus Parks, 1924 (Ornithischia: Ankylosauria)
and a
revision of the genus, V. M. Arbour, M. E. Burns &
R. L. Sissons - 2009.
- A Cretaceous armoury: Multiple ankylosaurid taxa in the Late
Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA, Victoria Arbour
- 2010.
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