Foraminacephale
Foraminacephale was a tiny, dome-headed dinosaur that lived in what is now Canada. It walked on two legs and munched on plants. Its thick, bumpy skull dome might have been used for head-butting contests!14
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Fun facts
The top of its skull dome is covered in tiny pits called foramina, which give the dinosaur its name.1
Foraminacephale lived about 77 to 73 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous.1
Scientists have found skulls from babies, teenagers, and adults, showing how the dome grew taller and less spongy with age.1
Even the youngest Foraminacephale already had a slightly domed skull, unlike its relative Stegoceras which started flat.1
Micro-CT scans suggest that pachycephalosaurids like Foraminacephale may have head-butted each other.1
The dome of Foraminacephale has a large central lobe and two smaller side lobes at the front.1
Its squamosal bone forms a tall, smooth bar under the dome, lined with six bony bumps.1
Most asked questions about Foraminacephale
?How big was Foraminacephale?
About 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) long and weighed around 10 kilograms (22 lb), according to a 2016 estimate.1
?Did Foraminacephale head-butt?
Micro-CT scans of a possible Foraminacephale specimen suggest that pachycephalosaurids like it likely engaged in head-butting.1
?When did Foraminacephale live?
It lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 77 to 73 million years ago.1
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Foraminacephale
- Named by
- Schott and Evans 20174
- Group
- Dome-heads
- Family / clade
- Pachycephalosauridae4
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Pachycephalosauria4
- Age of the rocks
- 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)4
- Rock formations
- Dinosaur Park4
- Countries
- Canada4
- Fossil records
- 5 in the Paleobiology Database4
- Discovery
- The first fossil, a nearly complete skull dome, was found in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta in 1902. It was named Stegoceras brevis by Lawrence Lambe in 1918, but in 2016 Ryan Schott and David Evans gave it the new name Foraminacephale brevis.1
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure whether Foraminacephale used its dome for head-butting or for display, though CT scans hint at head-butting.1
Where the facts come from
- Foraminacephale (en.wikipedia.org)
- Cranial variation and systematics of Foraminacephale brevis gen. nov. and the diversity of pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Cerapoda) in the Belly River Group of Alberta, Canada | Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society | Oxford Academic (academic.oup.com)
- Foraminacephale (prehistoric-wildlife.com)
- Foraminacephale in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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