Aletopelta Ford & Kirkland, 2001
Aletopelta Ford & Kirkland, 2001
(The armored dinosaurs. Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis: 240
NcZ) "wandering shield"
a-LEE-to-PEL-tuh (Gr. aletes "wandering" +
Gr. pelte "shield") (f)
named to indicate an armored dinosaur from southern California: "because originally,
the [geologic] plate containing the Peninsular Ranges Terrane, where Carlsbad and San Diego,
California, are today, was somewhere opposite the middle of Mexico...this plate had thus
been wandering northward, carrying the specimen with it." Aletopelta is medium-size
(est. around 6 m (20 ft) long) ankylosaurid, known from a partial skeleton
(Holotype: SDNHM 33909 (San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego, California)),
including femora, tibiae, fibulae and incomplete parts of a scapula, humerus, ulna,
left and right ischium, vertebrae, ribs, partial armor over the pelvic girdle plus
at least 60 detached armor plates and 8 teeth, found in the Late Cretaceous (Upper Campanian)
marine Point Loma Formation, near Carlsbad, California.
Apparently the bloated carcass floated out to sea and formed a miniature reef environment
after it sunk to the bottom. Aletopelta is diagnosed as an ankylosaurid mainly based on
the shape and arrangement of its osteoderm armor, which is closer in form to ankylosaurids
than to nodosaurids. Ben Creisler suggested the name Aletopelta.
Type Species: Aletopelta coombsi [KOHM-zie] Ford & Kirkland, 2001: to honor the
vertebrate paleontologist Walter P. Coombs, Jr., "for his ground-breaking work
on ankylosaurs and his years of research, which have inspired many an enthusiast
as well as professional paleontologist."
Ankylosauria Ankylosauridae Late Cretaceous (Campanian) NA [added 6-2002]
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