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Fossils of Edmontonia longiceps ("from Edmonton")
were found in Upper Cretaceous deposits of Alberta, Canada. Their tank-like
bodies were wrapped in bony armor to protect them from the roaming tyrannosaurs of the day. These nodosaurs used their beak-like mouths to clip vegetation
off low-growing plants as they grazed the open landscape. Unlike their Euoplocephalus cousin, they did not have a bony club at the end of their tail, so they could
do little harm to any attacker.
Taxonomy
Edmontonia longiceps is a nodosaur and representative of this branch of the Ankylosauria.
These medium sized (5-7 meters long), plant-eating ornithischians measured up
to 2.5 meters tall at the back and were quadrupedal, like Euoplocephalus. Paleontologists
group nodosaurs (and all ankylosaurs) with stegosaurs as Thyreophorans.
Anatomy
Nodosaurs are different from true ankylosaurs in the details of both skulls
and bodies. Their small skulls are longer than they are wide (compare with
E. tutus whose skull is at least as wide as long), their nasal passage is less
complex and they lack the triangular cheek horns. While similar in body shape,
nodosaurs are generally smaller, have pronounced back spines, bands of bony
protection on their back and do not have a club on their tail. Nodosaur teeth
are characteristically leaf-shaped and non-interlocking, like most thyreophoran
dinosaurs.
More than likely, Edmontonia longiceps did not try to flee when attacked--instead,
it squatted down, presenting its spines and bony armor to attackers.
Edmontonia Links
[ Dinosauria -> Ornithischia -> Thyreophora -> Ankylosauria -> Nodosauridae ]
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