#pachycephalosaurids

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 25 - Tylocephale gilmorei

The pachycephalosaurids are famous for their thick, armoured heads, but one dome rose above the rest. Living in Late Cretaceous Mongolia, Tylocephale gilmorei, while a medium-sized pachycephalosaur, had the tallest known dome head comparable to body size. This dome could sustain higher forces of impact than other pachycephalosaurids. Like other pachycephalosaurs it likely ate plants and insects, though it had serrations on its teeth that may have allowed it to eat tougher materials like seeds and nuts.

Tylocephale lived in an arid alluvial plain. It lived alongside a variety of other dinosaurs in the Barun Goyot Formation including ankylosaurs like Saichania, Tarchia, and Zaraapelta, protoceratopsids like Bagaceratops and Breviceratops, the titanosaur Quaesitosaurus, dromaeosaurs like Kuru and Shri, halszkaraptorines like Hulsanpes, oviraptorids like Conchoraptor, Heyuannia, and Nemegtomaia, alvarezsaurids like Khulsanurus and Parvicursor, and birds like Gobipipus, Gobipteryx, and Hollanda.

[saritawolff]

Archovember Day 22: Prenocephale prenes

Prenocephale was a mid-size Pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. It was 8 feet long and stood about as tall as a great dane.

Prenocephale had a round, sloping, domed head surrounded by a row of small spikes and bumps. It was originally thought that they would use these domed heads to headbutt like goats, but further inspection of fossils show they were probably more likely to ram into the flanks of rivals, rather than their heads.

As with most Pachycephalosaurids, paleontologists do not know what Prenocephale’s diet was like, but it is assumed that it at least ate plants. It may have been an omnivore, feeding on both plants and insects.

Prenocephale is hypothesized to be the adult form of “Homalocephale,” or at least a close relative.

[weekly-wonder-blog]

Stygimoloch

This week’s prehistoric animal is the stygimoloch.

Image source: Beth Hoffman on Flickr.

Its name means “demon from the Styx” or, according to my Familiar Dinosaurs Audubon Society Pocket Guide, “River Styx Devil.” The name presumably comes from the prominent horns. Stygimoloch is a genus of pachycephalosaurid, dinosaurs with prominent bony domes on the tops of their heads. Living at the end of the Cretaceous period in what is now the United States, stygimoloch would have been fairly large for a pachycephalosaur, with a skull about 46 cm (18”) long. Familiar Dinosaurs gives its total body length as 5’, and notes that they were sturdy bipeds with small sharp teeth. Their domes were smaller than in other pachycephalosaurs, but they had elaborate ornamentation instead, including short horns on the nose and enormous 15 cm long spikes jutting backwards from the top of the head, surrounded by shorter (but still impressive) horns. What pachycephalosaurs did with their domes is a matter for debate—butt heads? ward off predators? display for the opposite sex?—but whatever it was, the fancy stygimoloch would have been impressive doing it. The type species is Stygimoloch spinifer, or the thorny devil from the Styx. I think these guys need to contact their PR agent, because the palaeontologists have launched a slander campaign starting with the poor dinos’ own name. The River Styx, in case you haven’t heard, meaning “hate” in ancient Greek, is one of the rivers which bounded the Underworld. No oath sworn upon the Styx could be broken, and thus mortals favoured such oaths when treating with gods, who could not otherwise be trusted to keep their word. Posted by Christian H.

[dinodorks]

Hey Leopard! Do you think any pachycephalosaurs were bristly like ceratopsians?

Hello sylph0fl1ght, thanks for the question c:

I could definitely see at least some sorts of Pachycephalosaurids with bristles on some part(s) of their bodies, most likely just on their lower backs/tails like what is depicted on Ceratopsians.

- Leopard