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Acanthopholis facts for kids

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Acanthopholis
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 97Ma
Acanthopholis suposed.jpg
Artist's rendering of Acanthopholis
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Family: Nodosauridae
Subfamily: Acanthopholinae
Nopcsa, 1923
Genus: Acanthopholis
Huxley, 1867
Binomial name
Acanthopholis horrida
Huxley, 1867
Synonyms
  • Syngonosaurus macrocercus? Seeley, 1879

Acanthopolis (meaning "spiny scales") was an armoured ankylosaurian dinosaur. This quadrupedal (walked on four legs), plant-eating dinosaur had its armour in rows of oval plates set into its skin. It also had spikes jutting out of its neck and shoulder area along the spine. It was about 15 feet long (4 m) and weighed roughly 380 kg.

The first specimen was found in 1865 by fossil collector John Griffiths on the shoreline at Folkestone. The stratum was Cambridge Greensand, a formation in the Lower Cretaceous of southern England. At the time England was part of a huge tropical river delta, and the Greensand was laid down just offshore. It seems that dinosaurs were on the shoreline or the river delta, and sometimes their bodies washed out to sea.

  • Carpenter, Kenneth 2001. Phylogenetic analysis of Ankylosauria. In Carpenter, Kenneth (ed): The armored dinosaurs. Indiana University Press, 455–480. ISBN: 0-253-33964-2

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Acanthopholis horrida para niños

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