Nodosaurines Temporal range: Early to Late Cretaceous,115–66 Ma |
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Old interpretation of Nodosaurus, the type genus | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Order: | †Ornithischia |
Suborder: | †Ankylosauria |
Family: | †Nodosauridae |
Subfamily: |
†Nodosaurinae Abel, 1919 |
Genera | |
Animantarx |
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Synonyms | |
Panoplosaurinae Nopsca, 1929 |
Animantarx
Denversaurus
Edmontonia
Niobrarasaurus
Nodosaurus
Panoplosaurus
Peloroplites
Priconodon
Propanoplosaurus
Sauropelta
Silvisaurus
Stegopelta
Panoplosaurinae Nopsca, 1929
Edmontoniinae Russell, 1940
Stegopeltinae Ford, 2000
Sauropeltinae Ford, 2000
Nodosaurinae is a group of ankylosaurian dinosaurs named in 1919 by Othenio Abel.
The subfamily Nodosaurinae was originally named by Othenio Abel in 1919. It originally included Ankylosaurus, from the Upper Cretaceous of North America, possibly Hierosaurus, and Stegopelta, from North America also. It was found to be very specialized and peculiar by Abel. Abel mentioned that the neck shield found in ceratopsians was very different from all nodosaurines, and that only the neck spines are present in Nodosaurinae. The body of nodosaurines is completely covered in strong armour plates, with a similar shape to tiles, and are lined up along the body. A large degree of pubic reduction was found in nodosaurines, a feature that is also found in Stegosaurus and Triceratops. Nodosaurines were all quadrupedal, and lived that way for their whole life. Quadrupedalism was found to be a feature in Stegosauridae, Ceratopsidae, and Acanthopholidae. It was unused for a long time, but in 2013 during the description of a new basal nodosaurid, Europelta, and the redefinition of Struthiosaurinae, James Kirkland and his colleagues found all North American nodosaurids to represent the derived group Nodosaurinae, while all European nodosaurids made up the basal clade Struthiosaurinae.