Cedarpelta
Cedarpelta was a big, plant-eating armoured dinosaur that stomped around Utah during the Late Cretaceous. It had a bony shield on its head and a club-like tail, just like its cousin Ankylosaurus.21
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Fun facts
Cedarpelta is one of the few ankylosaurs whose skull bones are not completely fused together, which let scientists study each bone separately.2
One of its skulls was found disarticulated, meaning the bones were scattered, a first for an ankylosaur skull.2
Its skull was about 60 centimetres (24 inches) long, and it had 18 teeth in its upper jaw.2
Cedarpelta lived about 98 to 93 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.2
The name Cedarpelta comes from the Cedar Mountain Formation and the Greek word 'pelte', meaning small shield.2
Fossils of Cedarpelta were found alongside those of a brachiosaurid, an iguanodontian, a turtle, a pterosaur, and another armoured dinosaur called Peloroplites.2
Most asked questions about Cedarpelta
?How big was Cedarpelta?
Estimates vary. It was about 7 metres (23 feet) long and weighed about 5 tonnes (11,023 lbs), though some scientists think it could reach 9 metres.2
?What did Cedarpelta eat?
Cedarpelta was a plant-eating dinosaur, so it ate plants like ferns and leaves.1
?Did Cedarpelta have a tail club?
There is no evidence of a tail club in Cedarpelta, even though it is an ankylosaurid.3
?When did Cedarpelta live?
Cedarpelta lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 98 to 93 million years ago.2
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Myth buster
Myth: Some people think all armoured dinosaurs had a tail club, but Cedarpelta may not have had one.
Truth: Cedarpelta is a basal ankylosaurid, and scientists are not sure if it had a tail club like later ankylosaurs.2
For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Cedarpelta
- Named by
- Carpenter et al. 20014
- Group
- Armoured dinos
- Family / clade
- Ankylosauridae4
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Ankylosauridae > Thyreophora4
- Age of the rocks
- 121 to 100 million years (Aptian / Albian)4
- Rock formations
- Cedar Mountain4
- Countries
- USA4
- Fossil records
- 3 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Discovery
- Cedarpelta was discovered by Evan Hall and Sue Ann Bilbey near the Price River in Utah, and was named in 2001 by Kenneth Carpenter, James Kirkland, Don Burge, and John Bird.2
- Still debated
- Scientists debate whether Cedarpelta was an ankylosaurid or a nodosaurid, and some think it might be the earliest known ankylosaurid.2
Where the facts come from
- Cedarpelta | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- Cedarpelta (en.wikipedia.org)
- Utah's Prehistoric Tanks: The Ankylosaurs - Utah Geological Survey (geology.utah.gov)
- Cedarpelta in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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