Dinosaurs
It isn't hard to imagine the world full of dinosaurs, even though these extinct animals haven't walked the earth for millions of years. Learn all about dinosaurs, including early dinosaur discoveries, dinosaur fossils, and dinosaur extinction.
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Anchisaurus
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Acrocanthosaurus
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Gallimimus ("chicken mimic") was the largest of the ornithomimids (the "ostrich dinosaurs") known. It has been found only in the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. Learn more about the Gallimimus and other Late Cretaceous dinosaurs.
Garudimimus brevipes was one of many dinosaurs found by the Joint Soviet-Mongolian Paleontological Expeditions of the 1970s. It was named for the Garuda bird of Hindu mythology; its name means "short-footed Garuda mimic."
The flat-headed Goyocephale was one of the most unusual pachycephalosaurs. It was found by the Joint Polish-Mongolian Paleontological Expeditions to the Gobi Desert is and was named and described in 1982. Learn more about the Goyocephale.
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Hadrosaurus ("thick reptile") was the first hadrosaur skeleton to be discovered. It was named and described in 1858 by Joseph Leidy, the father of American paleontology.
As its name ("even head") suggests, Homalocephale had a flat head unlike most pachycephalosaurs. It is known from limited but very good material. The single skull of Homalocephale is missing the front of the snout but is otherwise complete. Learn more about the Homocephale.
Kritosaurus was a large, flat-headed duckbilled dinosaur. It had a ridge of bone between the eyes and the snout that gave it a distinguished "Roman nose" appearance.
Since it was named in 1979 by John Horner and Robert Makela, Maiasaura has become one of the most famous dinosaurs. It has provided information about how it cared for its young and the early development of dinosaurs. Learn more about the Maiasaura.
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Known from only a single skull and jaw from Montana and three teeth from South Dakota, Nanotyrannus was first thought to be an Albertosaurus. But it was recently redescribed because it was different in many ways from Albertosaurus.
Discovered by the Joint Polish-Mongolian Paleontological Expedition in 1965, the sauropod Opisthocoelicaudia is known from a skeleton with nearly all the bones of the body except the neck and head. Learn more about the Opisthocoelicaudia.
The first specimen of Oviraptor was discovered by the American Museum of Natural History expedition to Asia in 1923. It was found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.
The largest pachycephalosaur was Pachycephalosaurus. First found in rocks of Late Cretaceous age in Montana, Pachycephalosaurus was named and described by Barnum Brown and Eric Schlaikjer. Learn more about the Pachycephalosaurus.
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Panoplosaurus is known only from two partial skeletons, one of which preserves some of the armor the way it was in life. This skeleton shows that Panoplosaurus was unusual among nodosaurids because it did not have spikes on the sides of its neck.
Parasaurolophus was an interesting-looking dinosaur. While it looked normal from the neck down, it looked almost as if it had a trombone on its head. And in a way, it did.
Pinacosaurus was one of the first armored dinosaurs found in Asia. An expedition from the American Museum of Natural History went to Mongolia to search for traces of early man; instead they found dinosaur eggs and skeletons.
An almost complete skull and most of the skeleton were found for Prenocephale. It was collected during the Joint Polish-Mongolian Expeditions to the Gobi Desert. The animal was named and described in 1974.
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Protoceratops andrewsi was discovered in Mongolia in 1922 by an expedition from the American Museum of Natural History led by Roy Chapman Andrews. Its genus name means "first-horned face," and its species name was in honor of the expedition's leader.
From Salta in Argentina, Saltasaurus was described from several incomplete skeletons, none of which were found with a skull. This medium-size sauropod was dwarfed by its giant relative Antarctosaurus is also from South America.
Saurolophus ("ridged reptile") was a hadrosaurid. It had a large bony spike pointing back over the top of its head between its eyes. Learn more about the Saurolophus and other Late Cretaceous dinosaurs.
Segnosaurus galbinensis, or "slow lizard from Galbin" (a region of the Gobi Desert), was first described by Mongolian paleontologist Altangerel Perle in 1979. It was an unusual saurischian that he classified in its own family, the Segnosauridae.
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The paleontological expeditions into the Turpan Basin in 1964-1966 turned up several interesting and unusual dinosaurs, ilncuding the Shanshanosaurus huoyanshanensis. Learn more about the Shanshanosaurus and other Late Cretaceous dinosaurs.
Shantungosaurus may have been the largest hadrosaur. It is larger than some of the smaller sauropods. Named and described in 1973, Shantungosaurus is known from many disarticulated (not joined) bones from the Shandong Province, People's Republic of China.
Styracosaurus was discovered in 1913 in the Belly River Formation of Alberta by Charles Sternberg. Lawrence Lambe named this animal Styracosaurus albertensis, which means "spiked reptile of Alberta," for its unusual neck frill.
This ankylosaur is known from two species. Tarchia giganteus is known from a complete skull and a partial skeleton. But, except for the skull, little of the material has been described. Learn more about the Tarchia and other Late Cretaceous dinosaurs.
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In 1948, several giant claw bones were found by a Soviet-Mongolian scientific team and because the shape of the claws is similar to the claws of some turtles, workers first thought they belonged to a giant turtle, so the specimen was named Therizinosaurus cheloniformis ("turtlelike scythe reptile").
The first two Torosaurus specimens were a pair of skulls found in Wyoming in 1891 by John Bell Hatcher. They were described by Othniel Marsh later that same year. These two skulls were named Torosaurus latus and Torosaurus gladius.