Pachycephalosaurus
Pachycephalosaurus
wyomingensis
Pronounced:
Pack-e-Sef-ah-low-Saw-rus
Diet:
Omnivore
(Meat &
Plant-Eater)
Name Means:
"thick head
lizard"
Length:
26 feet (8
m)
Height:
8 feet (3.5
m)
Weight:
1 ton (900
kilos)
Time:
Cretaceous
Fossil
remains
for this
Dinosaur
have
been
found in
Western
United
States
This was a real
bonehead. The
skull of
Pachycephalosaurus
was 8 inches
thick on top.
For years,
scientists
thought it was
used primarily
for head-butting
contests, sort
of like mountain
goats do today,
but recent
studies of the
skeletons of
related
dinosaurs show
that its neck
might have
broken if it
tried that.
A skeleton of
the
Pachycephalosaurus
has never been
found, so most
of what is known
about it is only
from the skull
and its close
relatives. There
are several
strange
characteristics,
in addition to
its thick skull.
It lived at the
very end of the
dinosaur age,
when most
dinosaurs were
fairly advanced,
yet it still had
five fingers, a
primitive
characteristic.
Also, the shape
of its teeth was
somewhat
primitive,
similar to those
of the
Stegosaurus
which had lived
over 100 million
years earlier.
These were
clearly
plant-eater
teeth, but it
also had front
teeth that could
have been used
like a
meat-eater. |
