Niobrarasaurus
Name:
Niobrarasaurus
(Niobrara lizard).
Phonetic: Ne-o-bra-rah-sor-us.
Named By: K. Carpenter, D. W. Dilkes
& D. B. Weishampel - 1995.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithiischia, Thyreophora, Ankylosauria, Nodosauridae.
Species: N. coleii (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Roughly about 6.5 meters long.
Known locations: USA, Kansas - Niobrara
Formation [Smoky Hill Chalk Member].
Time period: Santonian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial remains of several
individuals.
Niobrarasaurus
is a genus of medium/large nodosaur
that lived in North America during
the Late Cretaceous. Other than this Niobrarasaurus
would have been
an unremarkable dinosaur genus were it not for one thing, and this is
that the first (and at the time of writing only) fossils of this
dinosaur are known from the Niobrara Formation of Kansas. As anyone
already familiar with this fossil bearing rock formation will tell
you, this is a marine deposit that back in the late Cretaceous was
part of the submerged bottom of the Western interior seaway, a
shallow sea that submerged most of the middle of the North American
continent.
So
the question is, how did a large number of nodosaurs of the same
genus, squat quadrupedal dinosaurs adapted for life on land, all
end up with their bodies lying at the bottom of the sea? Well
nodosaurs were best adapted for browsing upon lush low growing
vegetation, the kind which is usually absent from beaches, so it is
unlikely that they had become trapped by a tide. A Tsunami could be
one dramatic explanation, sweeping across a small group of
Niobrarasaurus near to the coast and pulling them
out to sea when the
surge receded back. Another possibly more likely explanation could be
that a group of Niobrarasaurus might have been
trying to forge a river
that was swollen with flood water, and that the weaker members of
the group, unable to cope with the increased current were drowned and
swept downstream and out to sea.
The
precedent for these kinds of major flooding events are known from other
areas of North America where bone beds of several hundred to even
several thousands of individual dinosaurs have been accumulated
together as a result of flood deposits.
Further reading
- The dinosaurs of the Niobrara Chalk Formation (Upper Cretaceous,
Kansas). - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
15(2):275-297. - K. Carpenter, D. W. Dilkes &
D. B. Weishampel - 1995.
- Notice of the transfer of the holotype specimen of Niobrarasaurus
coleii (Ankylosauria; Nodosauridae) to the Sternberg
Museum of
Natural History. - Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science
107(3-4): 173-174. - M. J. Everhart - 2004.
- A new nodosaur specimen (Dinosauria: Nodosauridae) from the
Smoky Hill Chalk (Upper Cretaceous) of western Kansas. -
Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 108(1/2):
15-21. - M. J. Everhart & S. A. Hamm - 2005.
- Field notes regarding the 1930 discovery of the type specimen
of Niobrarasaurus coleii, Gove County, Kansas.
- Transactions
of the Kansas Academy of Science 110(1/2): 132-134. - V.
B. Cole - 2007.
- Skull of the ankylosaur Niobrarasaurus coleii
(Ankylosauria:
Nodosauridae) from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Coniacian) of western
Kansas. - Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science,
110(1/2): 1-9 - K. Carpenter & M. J.
Everhart - 2007.
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