Post by Barry the Baryonyx on Jun 25, 2007 15:54:39 GMT -5
Dracorex hogwartsia
Dracorex is a dinosaur genus of the family Pachycephalosauridae, from the Late Cretaceous of North America. The type (and only) species is Dracorex hogwartsia, meaning "dragon king of Hogwarts". It is known only from one nearly complete skull discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota by three amateur paleontologists from Sioux City, Iowa. The skull was subsequently donated to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis for study in 2004, and was formally described by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan in 2006.
Anatomy
Dracorex, an herbivore, had a skull with spiky horns, bumps, and a long muzzle. Unlike some other pachycephalosaurs, Dracorex did not have a domed forehead but was instead flat-headed. The subadult animal was approximately 10 feet (3 m) long.
In all other respects, Dracorex is identical to the pachycephalosaur Stygimoloch. It has therefore been proposed that Dracorex is, in fact, a subadult or juvenile form of Stygimoloch. [citation needed]
Name
The name Dracorex hogwartsia was inspired by young visitors to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis as a tribute to both dragons (Dracorex means "dragon king"), which the animal resembled, as well as the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling (hogwartsia for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a fictional school from the popular series).
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Marginocephalia
Family: Pachycephalosauridae
Genus: Dracorex
Binomial name
Dracorex hogwartsia
Dracorex is a dinosaur genus of the family Pachycephalosauridae, from the Late Cretaceous of North America. The type (and only) species is Dracorex hogwartsia, meaning "dragon king of Hogwarts". It is known only from one nearly complete skull discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota by three amateur paleontologists from Sioux City, Iowa. The skull was subsequently donated to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis for study in 2004, and was formally described by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan in 2006.
Anatomy
Dracorex, an herbivore, had a skull with spiky horns, bumps, and a long muzzle. Unlike some other pachycephalosaurs, Dracorex did not have a domed forehead but was instead flat-headed. The subadult animal was approximately 10 feet (3 m) long.
In all other respects, Dracorex is identical to the pachycephalosaur Stygimoloch. It has therefore been proposed that Dracorex is, in fact, a subadult or juvenile form of Stygimoloch. [citation needed]
Name
The name Dracorex hogwartsia was inspired by young visitors to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis as a tribute to both dragons (Dracorex means "dragon king"), which the animal resembled, as well as the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling (hogwartsia for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a fictional school from the popular series).
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Marginocephalia
Family: Pachycephalosauridae
Genus: Dracorex
Binomial name
Dracorex hogwartsia
Is it just us?