Panoplosaurus

Taxobox
name = "Panoplosaurus"
fossil_range = Late Cretaceous
status = Fossil

---

image_width = 250px
image_caption = "Panoplosaurus mirus" skull
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
superordo = Dinosauria
ordo = Ornithischia
subordo = Thyreophora
infraordo = Ankylosauria
familia = Nodosauridae
genus = "Panoplosaurus"
genus_authority = Lambe, 1919
species = "P. mirus"
binomial = "Panoplosaurus mirus"
binomial_authority = Lambe, 1919

"Panoplosaurus" means "armoured lizard" and was the last known nodosaur. Nodosaurs were herbivores that survived for 120 million years. They belonged to the armored ankylosaurian dinosaur group. The earliest nodosaurs originally appeared 185 million years ago in what was the Middle Jurassic period. "Panoplosaurus" arrived 100 million years later in the Late Cretaceous and survived until the end of the dinosaurs.

It lived in what is now North America; fossils have been located in Montana and Alberta. Its size was 5.5-7 m long and was 2 m tall. It weighed approximately 3.5 tons and ate low growing plants. They did not possess a club like tail but had a helmet of bony plates over its head. Bands of stud covered plates covered its back to tail.

References

* [http://www.dinoruss.com/de_4/5a77df1.htm DinoRuss.com - "Panoplosaurus"]