Prenocephale
Name:
Prenocephale
(Sloped head).
Phonetic: Pree-no-sef-ah-lay.
Named By: Maryanska & Osmolska - 1974.
Synonyms: Homalocephale? Sphaerotholus
buchholtzae
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Pachycephalosauridae.
Species: P. prenes (type),
P. brevis, P. edmontonensis
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 2.4 meters long.
Known locations: Mongolia.
Time period: Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Mostly skulls and a few
fragmentary post cranial remains.
Known
mostly from skulls, Prenocephale seems to have
been a fairly large
pachycephalosaur
that lived in what is now Mongolia. The snout of
Prenocephale is narrower than that of many other
pachycephalosaur
genera, suggesting that it was more of a selective browser.
While
Prenocephale is considered to be a valid genus,
two others named Sphaerotholus buchholtzae and Homalocephale,
have been
suggested to be synonyms of Prenocephale. Whereas
Prenocephale has a
dome on its head, Sphaerotholus buchholtzae and Homalocephale
are flatter on
top, but the advent of new discoveries in other genera seems to
indicate that pachycephalosaurs did not develop the dome structure on
their heads until they were adults. With this in mind, many
palaeontologists have suggested that Sphaerotholus
and Homalocephale
are merely the juvenile and sub adult individuals of Prenocephale.
Another
pachycephalosaur genus that may have lived alongside Prenocephale
is
Tylocephale.
Further reading
- Texacephale langstoni, a new genus of
pachycephalosaurid
(Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the upper Campanian Aguja
Formation, southern Texas, USA, N. R. Longrich, J.
Sankey & D. Tanke - 2010.
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