RE: South Dakota fossil yields new dinosaur species

["heby@libero.it" <heby@libero.it>]

> Quoting Darryl Jones <dinoguy@sympatico.ca>:
>
> > In all seriousness, what sticks out on this new pachycephalosaur that
> > really makes it a pachycephlosaur?  It is a very cool skull.  The CT scans
> > are VERY cool.  Being an amateur, I will leave guessing and figuring to
> > those who know more.
>
> Yeah.  I thought it almost looked like a really bizarre thyreophoran skull of
> some sort.
>
The new pachies seems to share with Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis and 
Stygimoloch (but also with the unnamed "Sandy" specimen) a cluster of hornlets 
on the nasal, plus 2 series of various spikes on the rear of the squamosal, and 
a very prominent jugal boss...what is really weird is the presence of 
completely open supratempotal fenestrae, reminiscent of those oh 
Homalocephale...a very strange combination of advanced and primitive character. 
Very young pachycephalosaurs have no dome and open supratemporal fenestrae, but 
the long spikes are an adult feature, so the new skull could'nt be a juvenil.
Another point: this is the first pachycephalosaur to sport knobs and hornlet 
over the dome (Prenocephale, Colepiocephale, Hansuessia, Pachyphalosaurus, 
Stygimoloch, Stegoceras, but also Homalocephale or Goyocephale have smooth 
skull dome, or at most a wrinkled surface)..


Cheers,
Lukas Panzarin



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