Micropachycephalosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z Traditional Cache
Micropachycephalosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z
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Micropachycephalosaurus - Dinosaurs A-Z
"M" Micropachycephalosaurus
Dinosaurs A-Z will introduce you to some unique dinosaurs. I'm a big dinosaur fan and have read and researched many dinosaurs. Micropachycephalosaurus is the thirteenth in my collection of dinosaur geocaches. Unique Fact: This is the dinosaur with the longest name.
Micropachycephalosaurus: (meaning "small thick headed lizard") is a monotypic genus of ornithischian dinosaur. It lived in Shandong Province, China during the Late Cretaceous period (between 70.6 and 68.5 million years ago). The incomplete skeleton of the single specimen was found on a cliff southwest of Laiyang. It was bipedal and herbivorous, and currently has the longest generic name of any dinosaur. Ironically, it was also among the smallest of the dinosaurs, at a little over 1 meter (3.3 feet) long. The genus contains only the type species, Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis. Paleontologist Dong Zhiming originally described it as a member of the Pachycephalosauria, a group of bipedal dome-headed herbivores. However, re-evaluation of the family Pachycephalosauridae by Sullivan in 2006 cast doubt on this assignment. Further study of the original fossil specimens by Butler and Zhao in 2008 also failed to find any characteristics linking Micropachycephalosaurus with the pachycephalosaurs. The one piece of evidence that could provide this link, the supposedly thickened skull roof, was missing from the fossil collection the scientists examined, and so could not be used to support or refute its original classification. Butler and Zhao therefore classified it as an indeterminate member of the Cerapoda. In 2011, cladistic analysis performed by Butler et al. showed that Micropachycephalosaurus is a basal member of the Ceratopsia.
About: The name Micropachycephalosaurus may seem like a mouthful, but it's not so bad if you break it down into its constituent Greek words: micro, pachy, cephalo, saurus. That translates into "tiny thick-headed lizard," and fittingly, Micropachycephalosaurus is the smallest of all the known pachycephalosaurs (otherwise known as boneheads). For the record, the dinosaur with the shortest name--Mei--was also bite-sized; make of that what you will! Because Micropachycephalosaurus has been reconstructed from incomplete remains dug up in China, the possibility looms that this genus may one day be "downgraded"--that is, paleontologists will agree that it's another type of pachycephalosaur entirely (recently, experts figured out that the shape of pachycephalosaur skulls changed as these dinosaurs aged, makes classification mistakes all the more likely). If that happens, some other multisyllabic dinosaur (possibly Brachytrachelopan) will rise up to assume the "world's longest name" title.
(Source Wikipedia & About)
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