Europelta
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Europelta Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 112 Ma |
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| Skull of the holotype specimen | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Family: | †Nodosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Struthiosaurinae |
| Genus: |
†Europelta Kirkland et al., 2013 |
| Type species | |
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†Europelta carbonensis Kirkland et al., 2013 |
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Europelta is an extinct genus of struthiosaurine nodosaurid dinosaur known from the Early Cretaceous (early Albian stage) lower Escucha Formation of Teruel Province, northeastern Spain. It contains a single species, Europelta carbonensis. It is known from two associated partial skeletons, and represents the most complete ankylosaur known from Europe.
Europelta was first described and named by James Ian Kirkland, Luis Alcalá, Mark A. Loewen, Eduardo Espílez, Luis Mampel and Jelle P. Wiersma in 2013 and the type species is Europelta carbonensis. The generic name combines a contraction for Europe, as it is the most complete ankylosaur from the continent, and πέλτα (pelta) Ancient Greek for "shield", a common suffix for ankylosaurian genus names in reference to their armored bodies. The specific name means "from the coal", from the Latin carbo, in honor of the access provided by the Sociedad Anónima Minera Catalano-Aragonesa (SAMCA Group) to the fossil locality where Europelta was found, in the open-pit Santa María coal mine.
Europelta is known from two associated partial skeletons, reposited at Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis/Museo Aragonés de Paleontología (FCPTD/MAP). Discovered in 2011, the remains came from Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico of Teruel-Dinópolis locality AR-1, located east of Ariño, in the northern Teruel Province in the Community of Aragón. This vertebrate site occurs below the lowest mineable coal seam operated by SAMCA Group's Ariño coal mine in a plant debris bed in the lower Escucha Formation, and the most abundant dinosaur identified from it is the iguanodontian Proa valdearinnoensis. The paratype of Europelta was collected 200 meters laterally from the holotype in the same bed. The site dates to the early Albian stage of the late Early Cretaceous, based on an analysis of the palynomorphs, ostracods and charophytes (nanofossils).
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