Nodosauridae

Opisthokonta

Nodosaurids Temporal range: Late Jurassic - Late Cretaceous, 155–65 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Life restoration of Edmontonia rugosidens
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Node:	†Eurypoda
Suborder:	†Ankylosauria
Family:	†Nodosauridae Marsh, 1890
Genera
See text.
Synonyms
Acanthopholididae Nopcsa, 1902 Polacanthidae Wieland, 1911 Palaeoscincidae Nopcsa, 1918 Panoplosauridae Nopcsa, 1929 Struthiosauridae Kuhn, 1966 Edmontoniidae Bakker, 1988

Nodosauridae is a family of ankylosaurian dinosaurs, from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous Period of what are now North America, Asia, Antarctica and Europe.

Characteristics

Edmontonia in Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

Diagnostic characteristics for the Nodosauridae include the following: supraorbital boss rounded protuberance, occipital condyle derived from only the basioccipital and ornamentation present on the premaxilla. There is a fourth ambiguous character: the acromion is a knob-like process. All nodosaurids, like other ankylosaurs, may be described as medium-sized to large, heavily built quadrupedal herbivorous dinosaurs, possessing small denticulate teeth and parasagittal rows of osteoderms (a type of armour) on the dorsolateral surfaces of the body.

Classification

Taxonomy

The family Nodosauridae was erected by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1890, and anchored on the genus Nodosaurus. The following taxonomy follows Thompson et al., 2011 unless otherwise noted.^[1]

• Family Nodosauridae
  •  ?Aletopelta (California, Western North America)^[2]
  • Animantarx (Utah, Western North America)
  • Anoplosaurus (England, Northwestern Europe)
  • Antarctopelta (James Ross Island, Northeastern Antarctic Peninsula)
  • Edmontonia (Alberta, Western North America)
  • Gargoyleosaurus (Wyoming, Western North America)
  • Gastonia (Utah, Western North America)
  • Glyptodontopelta (New Mexico, Western North America)^[2]
  • Hoplitosaurus (South Dakota, central North America)
  • Hungarosaurus (Hungary, Central-Southern Europe)
  • Hylaeosaurus (Sussex, Southern England)
  • Mymoorapelta (Colorado, central North America)
  • Niobrarasaurus (Kansas, Western North America)
  • Nodosaurus (Wyoming and Kansas, Western North America)
  • Panoplosaurus (Montana and Alberta, Western North America)
  • Pawpawsaurus (Texas, Western North America)
  • Peloroplites (Utah, Western North America)
  • Polacanthus (Isle of Wight and Sussex, Southern England)
  • Propanoplosaurus (Maryland, Eastern North America)
  • Sauropelta (Wyoming and Montana, Western North America)
  • Silvisaurus (Kansas, Western North America)
  • Stegopelta (Wyoming, Western North America)
  • Struthiosaurus (Central-Southern Europe)
  • Tatankacephalus (Montana, Western North America)
  • Texasetes (Texas, Western North America)
  • Zhejiangosaurus (Zhejiang Province, Eastern China)
• Dubious Nodosaurids
  • Acanthopholis (United Kingdom, Western Europe)
  • Palaeoscincus

Phylogeny

The clade Nodosauridae was first defined by Paul Sereno in 1998 as "all ankylosaurs closer to Panoplosaurus than to Ankylosaurus," a definition followed by Vickaryous, Maryanska, and Weishampel in 2004. Vickaryous et al. considered two genera of nodosaurids to be of uncertain placement (incertae sedis): Struthiosaurus and Animantarx, and considered the most primitive member of the Nodosauridae to be Cedarpelta.^[3] The cladogram below follows the most resolved topology from a 2011 analysis by paleontologists Richard S. Thompson, Jolyon C. Parish, Susannah C. R. Maidment and Paul M. Barrett.^[1]

Nodosauridae	Antarctopelta Mymoorapelta Hylaeosaurus Anoplosaurus Tatankacephalus Polacanthus rudgwickensis Gargoyleosaurus Hoplitosaurus Gastonia Peloroplites Polacanthus Struthiosaurus Zhejiangosaurus Hungarosaurus Animantarx Niobrarasaurus Nodosaurus Pawpawsaurus Sauropelta Silvisaurus Stegopelta Texasetes Edmontonia Panoplosaurus

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Richard S. Thompson, Jolyon C. Parish, Susannah C. R. Maidment and Paul M. Barrett (2011). "Phylogeny of the ankylosaurian dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Thyreophora)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology in press. doi:10.1080/14772019.2011.569091. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14772019.2011.569091. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Burns, Michael E. (2008). "Taxonomic utility of ankylosaur (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) osteoderms: Glyptodontopelta mimus Ford, 2000: a test case". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 (4): 1102–1109. doi:10.1671/0272-4634-28.4.1102. 
3. ^ Vickaryous, M. K., Maryanska, T., and Weishampel, D. B. (2004). Chapter Seventeen: Ankylosauria. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.

• Carpenter, K. (2001). "Phylogenetic analysis of the Ankylosauria." In Carpenter, K., (ed.) 2001: The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2001, pp. xv-526

• Osi, Attila (2005). Hungarosaurus tormai, a new ankylosaur (Dinosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous of Hungary. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25(2):370-383, June 2003.

Dinosaurs portal