Tsagantegia

Tsagantegia
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 90 Ma
↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: †Ornithischia
Family: †Ankylosauridae
Subfamily: †Ankylosaurinae
Genus: †Tsagantegia
Tumanova, 1993
Species: †T. longicranialis
Binomial name
Tsagantegia longicranialis
Tumanova, 1993

Tsagantegia (/ˌsɑːɡɑːnˈteɪɡiə/; meaning "of Tsagan-Teg"; Tumanova, 1993) is a genus of medium-sized ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Mongolia, during the Cenomanian stage.

The holotype specimen (GI SPS N 700/17), a complete skull, was recovered from the Bayan Shireh Formation (Cenomanian-Santonian), at the Tsagan-Teg ("White Mountain") locality, Dzun-Bayan, in the southeastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The genus is monotypic, including only the type species, T. longicranialis.[1]

Description

The skull measures 30 centimetres (12 in) in length, with a maximum width of 25 centimetres (9.8 in). Vickaryous et al. (2004)[2] note that "Unlike other ankylosaurs, in Tsagantegia the cranial ornamentation is not subdivided into a mosaic of polygons but is amorphous." The quadratojugal and squamosal bosses are poorly developed, in contrast with other ankylosaurs. The skull was long and flat, smooth and bearing small horns.

Phylogenetics

In their cladistic analysis of the Ankylosauria, Vickaryous et al. (2004) placed Tsagantegia at the base of the Ankylosauridae, as the sister group to all other ankylosaurids.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Tumanova, T. A. 1993. A new armored dinosaur from southeastern Gobi. Paleontological Journal 27(2):119-125
  2. 1 2 Vickaryous, Maryanska, and Weishampel 2004. Chapter Seventeen: Ankylosauria. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/21/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.