Kentrosaurus

Kentrosaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 155–150 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Mounted skeleton, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Suborder:	†Stegosauria
Family:	†Stegosauridae
Genus:	†Kentrosaurus Hennig, 1915
Type species
†Kentrosaurus aethiopicus Hennig, 1915
Synonyms
Kentrurosaurus Hennig, 1916 Doryphorosaurus Nopcsa, 1916

Kentrosaurus (/ˌkɛntroʊˈsɔːrəs/ KEN-tro-SAWR-əs) is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of Tanzania. The type species is K. aethiopicus, named and described by German palaeontologist Edwin Hennig in 1915. Often thought to be a "primitive" member of the Stegosauria, several recent cladistic analyses find it as more derived than many other stegosaurs, and a close relative of Stegosaurus from the North American Morrison Formation within the Stegosauridae.

Fossils of K. aethiopicus have been found only in the Tendaguru Formation, dated to the late Kimmeridgian and early Tithonian ages, about 152 million years ago. Hundreds of bones were unearthed by German expeditions to German East Africa between 1909 and 1912. Although no complete skeletons are known, the remains provided a nearly complete picture of the build of the animal.