Dino card No. 1443 of 2,027

Platypelta

Say it: plat-ee-EL-ta

Name means: “wide small shield”1

Ate: PlantsArmoured dinosLate Cretaceous

Platypelta was a tank-like dinosaur covered in bony plates and spikes. It walked on four legs and munched on plants in what is now Canada, about 77 million years ago.1

Lived

84 to 72 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Alberta, Canada4 1

Food

Plants4 1

Length

6 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 6 dogs nose to tailas long as 33 bananas end to end

How big was Platypelta compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Some of Platypelta's back plates were huge, over 25 centimetres (10 inches) long, and had a sharp ridge like a beak.1

Its tail club was made of bone and could be swung at predators.1

Platypelta had a short, rounded snout and a large bump on the back of its skull for attaching strong neck muscles.1

The first fossils of Platypelta were found in 1914 by Barnum Brown and Peter Kaisen, but it was not named until 2018.1

Platypelta lived in the Dinosaur Park Formation, a place that was once a warm, swampy coastal plain.1

Its name comes from Greek words meaning 'wide' and 'small shield', because of its broad bony plates.1

AI-made picture of Platypelta — An AI-made picture of how Platypelta might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Platypelta

?How big was Platypelta?

Platypelta was a rather large ankylosaurid, estimated at about 6 metres (20 feet) long.1 3

?What did Platypelta eat?

Platypelta was a herbivore, meaning it ate plants.1 3

?When did Platypelta live?

Platypelta lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 77.5 to 76.5 million years ago.1 3

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Platypelta
Named by: Penkalski 20184
Group: Armoured dinos
Family / clade: Ankylosauridae4
Classification: Ornithischia > Ankylosauria > Ankylosauridae > Thyreophora4
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)4
Rock formations: Dinosaur Park, Oldman4
Countries: Canada4
Fossil records: 7 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Platypelta was named in 2018 by Paul Penkalski, based on a skeleton found in 1914 in Alberta, Canada. The skeleton had been thought to belong to another dinosaur, Euoplocephalus, until Penkalski's study showed it was a different animal.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how many different kinds of armoured dinosaurs lived in the same time and place as Platypelta, because their fossils are often incomplete and look very similar.2

Where the facts come from

Platypelta (en.wikipedia.org)
Revised systematics of the armoured dinosaur Euoplocephalus and its allies - Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen Band 287 Heft 3, Schweizerbart science publishers (schweizerbart.de)
Platypelta (prehistoric-wildlife.com)
Platypelta in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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