Ankylosaurs were armored dinosaurs that lived from the Early Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous period. They were related to the stegosaurs, both of which are classified in the family Thyreophora.
Facts[]
Ankylosauria is a group of herbivorous dinosaurs belonging to the order Ornithischia. It includes the great majority of dinosaurs with armor in the form of bony osteoderms. Ankylosaurs were bulky quadrupeds with short, powerful limbs. They are first known to have appeared in the early Jurassic period of China, and persisted until the end of the Cretaceous period. They have been found on every continent. The first dinosaur ever discovered in Antarctica was the ankylosaurian Antarctopelta, fossils of which were recovered from Ross Island in 1986.
Ankylosauria was first described by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1923.
In the Linnaean classification system, the group is usually considered either a suborder or an infraorder. It is contained within the family Thyreophora, which also includes the stegosaurs, armored dinosaurs known for their combination of plates and spikes.
In the Walking with... series[]
Members of Ankylosauria make numerous appearances in the "Walking with..." series. Polacanthus (a nodosaur) and Ankylosaurus (an ankylosaur) appear respectively in Giant of the Skies and Death of a Dynasty in Walking with Dinosaurs. An unidentified ankylosaur also appears in the Sea Monsters book and Edmontonia, a distant relative of Polacanthus, appeared in Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie.
Walking with Dinosaurs: Inside Their World introduced Euoplocephalus, a cousin of Ankylosaurus, and Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs introduced Tarchia.
