Wannanosaurus Temporal range: Earliest to Middle
Maastrichtian,
[1]
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Holotype skull, Paleozoological Museum of China | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | † Ornithischia |
Clade: | † Cerapoda |
Clade: | † Marginocephalia |
Clade: | † Pachycephalosauria |
Genus: | †
Wannanosaurus Hou, 1977 |
Species: | †W. yansiensis
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Binomial name | |
†Wannanosaurus yansiensis Hou, 1977
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Wannanosaurus (meaning " Wannan lizard", named after the location where it was discovered) is a genus of basal pachycephalosaurian dinosaur from the Maastrichtian Upper Cretaceous Xiaoyan Formation, about 70 million years ago ( mya) in what is now Anhui, China. The type species, Wannanosaurus yansiensis, was described by Hou Lian-Hai in 1977. [2]
It is known from a single partial skeleton, including a partial skull roof and lower jaw, a femur and tibia, part of a rib, and other fragments. Because it has a flat skull roof with large openings, it has been considered primitive among pachycephalosaurs. [2] [3] Sometimes it has been classified as a member of the now-deprecated family Homalocephalidae, [4] [5] now thought to be an unnatural assembly of pachycephalosaurians without domed skulls. [3] Although its remains are from a very small individual, with a femur length of ~8 centimeters (3.1 in) and an estimated overall length of about 60 cm (2 ft), [2] [6] the fused bones in its skull suggest that it was an adult at death. [7] Like other pachycephalosaurians, it was probably herbivorous or omnivorous, feeding close to the ground on a variety of plant matter, and possibly insects as well. [3]