Describer

Gilmore, 1933

Time

Cretaceous Late Santonian Campanian

Classification

Ornithischia Thyreophora Eurypoda Ankylosauria Ankylosauridae

Diet

Herbivore

Fossilsite

Djadochta Formation, Bayan Dzak, Red Beds of Alag Teg, Omnogov, Mongolia; unnamed unit, Ningxia Huizu Zihiqu, China

Fall Under

Pinacosaurus

Typespecies

5 meter

Info

Typespecies - Skull

Pinacosaurus (Gilmore, 1933) > Pinacosaurus grangeri (Gilmore, 1933) >> Pinacosaurus ninghsiensis (Young, 1953) + Syrmosaurus viminicaudus (Maleev, 1952)

Pinacosaurus> Pinacosaurus mephistocephalus (Godefroit, Pereda-Suberbiola, Li & Dong, 1999)

Holotype

AMNH 6523, incomplete skull and maxilla, first cervical vertebrae and some dermal scutes. Other referred material are a well preserved skull and almost complete postcranial skeleton of a young individual, another complete postcranial skeleton and fragmentary remains of postcrania and armour.

In total more than 15 specimens including 1 complete and 4 partial skulls, nearly complete skeleton with armor. The skull was 300 mm long and 340 mm wide. The postcranial skeleton is relatively light, the limb bones are slender, the manus is pentadactyl and the the pes tetradactyl.

The premaxilla is not covered by dermal ossifications, and the large oval nostril faces rostrally and is divided by a horizontal septum.

At least in juveniles, the nasal area has a laterally situated third opening that leads into a premaxillarly sinus. The beak is slightly wider than the distance between the caudalmost maxillary teeth. A joint expedition of Hayashibara and the Mongol science academy found a mass of 22 young individuals of 2 m in body length of Pinacosaurus in the Gobi Desert.

This was the second finding of a Pinacosaurus mass since the CCDP found 12 individuals of Pinacosaurus in \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'88 and \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'90.