Micropachycephalosaurus
Name:
Micropachycephalosaurus
(small thick headed lizard).
Phonetic: My-krow-pak-e-sef-ah-lo-sore-us.
Named By: Z. Dong - 1978.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ceratopsia.
Species: M. hongtuyanensis
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 60 centimetres long.
Known locations: China, Shandong Province -
Wangshi Group.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial remains.
Paradoxically
Micropachycephalosaurus is one of the smallest
dinosaurs that we know
about, yet it easily has one of the longest names.
Micropachycephalosaurus was named from a partially
preserved
individual that in 1978 was perceived as what we now call a
pachycephalosaur.
However more modern analysis in the early portion
of the twenty-first century noted that there is no evidence that
Micropachycephalosaurus had a thickened skull roof,
a key feature for
a pachycephalosaur. Micropachycephalosaurus is
today considered to
more likely be a small ceratopsian
dinosaur. This is not that far
away from the original classification given that the ceratopsian and
pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs are thought to have had a common ancestry
within the ornithischian (bird hipped) dinosaurs.
Micropachycephalosaurus
was a very small dinosaur, and one that was probably reliant upon
speed and agility to try and evade predators such as dromaeosaurid
and
troodontid
dinosaurs.
Further reading
- [A new genus of Pachycephalosauria from Laiyang, Shantung].
- Vertebrata PalAsiatica 16(4):225-228. - Z. Dong -
1978.
- A taxonomic review of the Pachycephalosauridae (Dinosauria:
Ornithischia). - New Mexico Museum of Natural History and
Science Bulletin, 35: 347-365. - R. M. Sullivan - 2006.
- The small-bodied ornithischian dinosaurs Micropachycephalosaurus
hongtuyanensis and Wannanosaurus yansiensis
from the Late Cretaceous of
China. - Cretaceous Research 30 (1): 63–77. - R.
J. Butler & Q. Zhao - 2009.
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