Gastonia (dinosaur)

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Gastonia
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 139–125 Ma
Reconstructed skeleton of G. burgei, BYU Museum of Paleontology
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Clade: Thyreophora
Suborder: Ankylosauria
Family: Nodosauridae
Subfamily: Polacanthinae
Genus: Gastonia
Kirkland, 1998
Type species
Gastonia burgei
Kirkland, 1998
Species
  • G. burgei
    Kirkland, 1998
  • G. lorriemcwhinneyae
    Kinneer et al., 2016

Gastonia is an armoured dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of North America. It lived about 139 to 125 million years ago.

It was a nodosaurid, closely related to Polacanthus. Gastonia has a sacral shield and large shoulder spikes.

Several examples of this genus of herbivorous ankylosaur were found in Utah in the Cedar Mountain Formation.[1]

References[change | change source]

  1. Kirkland, J.I. (1998). A polacanthine ankylosaur (Ornithischia: Dinosauria) from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of eastern Utah. In: S.G. Lucas, J.I. Kirkland, & J.W. Estep, (eds) Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 14: 271-281.