Thescelosaurinae

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Thescelosaurines
Temporal range: Cretaceous, 130–66  Ma
Burpee - Thescelosaurus.JPG
Thescelosaurus skeleton on display at the Burpee Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Ornithischia
Family: Thescelosauridae
Subfamily: Thescelosaurinae
Sternberg, 1940
Type species
Thescelosaurus neglectus
Gilmore, 1913
Subgroups

Thescelosaurinae is a subfamily of thescelosaurid dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of Asia and the Late Cretaceous of North America. [1]

Contents

Distribution

The distribution of Thescelosaurinae is quite large. They are widespread through United States and Canada where most of their fossils have been found. They also have a small group in North-Eastern China and Mongolia. [1]

Genera

Head and arms of Thescelosaurus, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center Thescelosaurus skeleton.jpg
Head and arms of Thescelosaurus, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center

Studies disagree about which genera are included in the Thescelosaurinae. The group is defined to include Parksosaurus and Thescelosaurus and a cladistic analysis by C.M. Brown in 2013 concluded that the genera Changchunsaurus , Haya , Jeholosaurus and possibly Koreanosaurus are also thescelosaurines. [1]

Classification

Thescelosauridae
This cladogram is from Brown et al., (2013). [2]

All thescelosaurines were originally included in the family Hypsilophodontidae, which is presently considered polyphyletic (unnatural). They are all now considered to be basal neornithischians, though more research is needed to be certain. They are the sister taxa to Orodrominae, a group containing Albertadromeus , Orodromeus , Oryctodromeus and Zephyrosaurus . Their parent taxon is Thescelosauridae along with Orodrominae. [1] Currently, all genera originally included in Jeholosauridae are classified in Thescelosaurinae, possibly as a group inside it. [2] If the group of jeholosaurids is not considered natural than that might mean Jeholosauridae is a synonym of Thescelosaurinae. Recently, a phylogenetic analysis found them outside of Ornithopoda, the group they'd been allied with traditionally. [3]

Related Research Articles

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<i>Thescelosaurus</i> Ornithischian dinosaur genus from Late Cretaceous US and Canada

Thescelosaurus was a genus of neornithischian dinosaur that appeared at the very end of the Late Cretaceous period in North America. It was a member of the last dinosaurian fauna before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event around 66 million years ago. The preservation and completeness of many of its specimens indicate that it may have preferred to live near streams.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thescelosauridae</span> Extinct family of dinosaurs

Thescelosauridae is a clade of neornithischians from the Cretaceous of Asia, North America and possibly South America. The group was originally used as a name by Charles M. Sternberg in 1937, but was not formally defined until 2013, where it was used by Brown and colleagues as the group uniting Thescelosaurus and Orodromeus, based on their phylogenetic results. During a phylogenetic revision of neornithischians by Clint Boyd in 2015, the authorship of Thescelosauridae was given to Brown and colleagues, which meant that the similar name Parksosauridae, informally defined in 2002 by Buchholz, would have had priority over Thescelosauridae. The two clades had slightly different definitions, with Parksosauridae referring to all animals closer to Parksosaurus than Hypsilophodon, but they contained the same taxa so Boyd used Parksosauridae under the assumption it had priority. However, in formalizing the clade following the regulations of the PhyloCode, Madzia, Boyd, and colleagues identified in 2021 that Sternberg was the proper authority for Thescelosauridae, giving it priority over Parksosauridae. As well, they gave Thescelosauridae the definition of the largest clade containing Thescelosaurus neglectus but not Iguanodon bernissartensis, as long as Hypsilophodon foxii was not in the group, modifying previous definitions for Thescelosauridae in order to maintain its modern use, so that the clade was not applied if Thescelosaurus fell within Hypsilophodontidae, a family that has not been recently used but may be revived if the systematic position of Hypsilophodon was solidified at some point in the future. Madzia et al. identified the analysis of Madzia et al. in 2018 as the reference analysis for the name Thescelosauridae, an analysis based on a revised version of the 2015 Boyd analysis.

<i>Kosmoceratops</i> Dinosaur genus from the Late Cretaceous period

Kosmoceratops is a genus of ceratopsid dinosaur that lived in North America about 76–75.9 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. Specimens were discovered in Utah in the Kaiparowits Formation of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in 2006 and 2007, including an adult skull and postcranial skeleton and partial subadults. In 2010, the adult was made the holotype of the new genus and species Kosmoceratops richardsoni; the generic name means "ornate horned face", and the specific name honors Scott Richardson, who found the specimens. The find was part of a spate of ceratopsian discoveries in the early 21st century, and Kosmoceratops was considered significant due to its elaborate skull ornamentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triceratopsini</span> Extinct tribe of dinosaurs

Triceratopsini is a tribe of herbivorous chasmosaurine dinosaurs that lived between the late Campanian to the late Maastrichtian stages of the Cretaceous period, between 74.73 and 66 million years ago. Fossils of these animals have been found in western North America, in particular West Canada, Western and Midwestern United States, which was once part of the ancient continent of Laramidia. The tribe was named by Nicholas R. Longrich in 2011 for the description of Titanoceratops, which he defined as "all species closer to Triceratops horridus than to Anchiceratops ornatus or Arrhinoceratops brachyops". Triceratopsins were the largest of the chasmosaurines; suggesting that gigantism had evolved in the Ceratopsidae once. In addition there is an evolutionary trend in the solidification of the frills, the most extreme being in Triceratops.

<i>Haya griva</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Haya is an extinct genus of basal neornithischian dinosaur known from Mongolia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orodrominae</span> Extinct subfamily of dinosaurs

Orodrominae is a subfamily of thescelosaurid dinosaurs known from the Cretaceous of North America and Asia.

<i>Dineobellator</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Dineobellator is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Cretaceous period 68 million years ago. The remains have been found in the Maastrichtian stage of the Naashoibito Member at the Ojo Alamo Formation, New Mexico.

<i>Nevadadromeus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Nevadadromeus is an extinct genus of small thescelosaurine ornithischian dinosaur, from the Willow Tank Formation of Nevada, United States. The genus contains a single species, N. schmitti, which represents the first non-avian dinosaur named from Nevada.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Thescelosaurinae". Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  2. 1 2 Brown, C. M.; Evans, D. C.; Ryan, M. J.; Russell, A. P. (2013). "New data on the diversity and abundance of small-bodied ornithopods (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Belly River Group (Campanian) of Alberta". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 33 (3): 495–520. doi:10.1080/02724634.2013.746229.
  3. Boyd, C. A. (2015). "The systematic relationships and biogeographic history of ornithischian dinosaurs". PeerJ. 3: e1523. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1523 . PMC   4690359 . PMID   26713260.