Pachycephalosaurus

Pachycephalosaurus was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous Period around 75 million years ago. William Winkley initially spotted it in Montana in 1938. Since then, further dinosaur fossils have been discovered in Canada, Mongolia, and Madagascar.

Pachycephalosaurus was estimated to have reached a length of 15 feet and a weight of over 900 pounds. The five-fingered claws, strong strong legs, and three-toed clawed feet of this dinosaur are well-known. It is, however, most recognized for its massive domed head. The skull wall of this dinosaur might be up to 10 inches thick. Bony knobs were present around this thick skull plate. Palaeontologists believe the dinosaurs employed this skull plate as a kind of self-defence or to butt heads with other Pachycephalosaurus dinosaurs, similar to how giant horned sheep do. Some palaeontologists, however, feel this could not have been the case. They claim that the heads of these dinosaur genera were not heavy enough to sustain such collisions and that no fossil examples of this dinosaur have been discovered with the type of skull damage that would be expected after such hits.

It is believed that the dinosaur pachycephalosaurus were herbivores and lived by eating plants, fruits, and seeds. Its teeth were thought to be incapable of handling some of the harder foliage that other herbivores of the time could, therefore palaeontologists assume the plants it ate had to be soft. However, it's worth noting that dinosaur pachycephalosaurus may have also eaten insects.

In this article, we are going to discuss the pachycephalosaurus, dinosaur genera, history behind all the fossils discoveries, habitat, description, diet, and also a few of the most important questions will be answered. 

About the Dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus

• Pachycephalosaurus ate plants. It lived in North America during the Cretaceous epoch. Its fossils have been discovered in South Dakota, Colorado, and Montana, among other places.

• Pachycephalosaurus is a bipedal ornithischian most known for its ultra-thick head and bowl-like head. They reached around 4 feet tall at the shoulder and were around 15 feet long from head to tail. They lived in what is now the upper Midwest of the United States during the Late Cretaceous Period.

• Pachycephalosaurus were originally supposed to compete for mates and territory by ramming one other in the head with their skull plates. Further studies revealed that this would have been extremely harmful and that their physiology was unable to protect them from such behaviour. Although their massive skulls are still assumed to have been utilized as a weapon, it is now suggested that they struck from the side rather than smashing opponents head-on.

History of Discoveries of the Pachycephalosaurus

• Because just a single nearly-complete skull and a few thick skull roofs have been discovered, little is known about the Pachycephalosaurus. It was one of the final dinosaurs to exist on the planet before the extinction event. 

• Since the 1850s, small remains have been discovered. Ferdinand Vandiveer discovered a little bone piece at the Missouri River's mouth in Montana in 1859. Armor from a reptile or armadillo-like creature was described. Charles Gilmore named the species after a fragmentary skull he found in 1931. Pachycephalosaurus is the sole recognized genus among those species. 

• With fresher, more complete material, Barnum Brown and Erich Maren Schlaikjer created the genus Pachycephalosaurus in 1943. Pachycephalosaurus grangeri, the type species of the genus Pachycephalosaurus, and Pachycephalosaurus Reinheimeri are the two species they named. AMNH 1696, a nearly complete skull from the Hell Creek Formation of Ekalaka, Carter County, Montana, was used to create P. grangeri. P. Reinheimeri was named after DMNS 469, a dome and a few related materials found in the Lance Formation of Corson County, South Dakota. They also referred to their new genus "Troodon" wyomingensis the older species "Troodon" wyomingensis. Since the year 1983, there are two species that have been considered to be synonymous with P. wyomingensis.

• Some pachycephalosaurid material and a domed parietal attributed to Pachycephalosaurus were found in the Scollard Formation in Alberta, Canada, in 2015, showing that dinosaurs of this epoch were global and lacked distinct faunal regions.

Description of the Pachycephalosaurus

• Pachycephalosaurus was likely bipedal and the biggest of the bone-headed dinosaurs, with Stygimoloch, Dracorex, and Stegoceras among the others. 

• It is believed that the Pachycephalosaurus was known for possessing a huge, bony dome atop its skull that was up to 25 centimetres or 10 inches thick and protected its brain from injury. Bony knobs ran along the back of the dome, and small bony spikes protruded upwards from the nose. These characteristics indicate that, despite their bipedal stance, they were most likely ceratopsians' relatives.

• Using evidence from other pachycephalosauridae, it has been estimated that Pachycephalosaurus was about the size of a big automobile, maybe around 4.6m or 15 ft long, with a rather short, thick neck, small forelimbs, a massive torso, long hind legs, and a hefty tail kept stiff by ossified tendons. Large forward-facing eye sockets indicate that the animal had a strong vision and was capable of binocular vision.

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Lifestyle of Pachycephalosaurus

• Pachycephalosaurus and its dome-headed cousins were previously thought to be the bipedal analogs of today's big-horned sheep. During the mating season, it was supposed that huge males would race at each other, colliding heads to see who would dominate and mate with a herd of females. It's also possible that they used their domed heads to defend themselves against predators. However, it is currently thought that the Pachycephalosaurs did not utilize their domes as extensively as they formerly did.

• Like Big Horned Sheep, the adult head bones could not have resisted pressure and collision, and the skulls lacked suitable shock absorption, so it's more likely that they head-butted their sides in an attempt to throw them off balance. On preserved Pachycephalosaurus heads, there are no scars or other signs of injury. Pachycephalosaurs, on the other hand, are unlikely to have acquired their massive heads only for show. It's a fairly polarising debate.

• Scientists are still trying to figure out what this dinosaur pachycephalosaurus ate. They couldn't have devoured tough, fibrous vegetation as successfully as other dinosaurs of the time since their teeth were so tiny and ridged. Pachycephalosaurus are thought to have eaten a variety of leaves, seeds, fruit, and insects. Shredding plants like ferns would have been a breeze with the sharp, serrated teeth. The insect diet is a contentious topic and few of the scientists argue that Pachycephalosaurus was a real carnivore, while others argue that it was a fine omnivore.

Habitat of the Pachycephalosaurus

• Pachycephalosaurus is thought to have lived in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alberta during the Late Cretaceous and perhaps the Early Paleogene, in woodlands, forests, fields, meadows, lowlands, grasslands, and plains. Pachycephalosaurus lived in many of the same places as the dinosaurs it shared these environments with. Trees, grass, bushes, ferns, forests, ponds, streams, rivers, brooks, creeks, and valleys abound in the floodplains where Pachycephalosaurus thrived.

• Lance formation was plain that was filled with streams, forest and woods and the formation was named after Lance Creek and was located in Wyoming. Pachycephalosaurus lived in a variety of locales, including the Lance Formation. Plains with trees, meadows, swamps, streams, creeks, brooks, ponds, ferns, bushes and forested regions were all present, but the region was mostly thought to be a wetland floodplain. Pachycephalosaurus shared the Lace Formation with birds, reptiles such as lizards, crocodiles, alligators, snakes, and turtles, as well as amphibians like frogs, salamanders, and toads, as well as invertebrates such as arachnids, insects, arthropods, crustaceans, fish, and small mammals. Individuals of Pachycephalosaurus have been discovered outside of the Lance Formation.

• Scollard formation was plain that was near Scollard Canyon and the formation is named after the canyon in Alberta, Canada. Scollard Formation, like other environments that Pachycephalosaurus lived in, is thought to have been a floodplain at one time, with forests, meadows, fields, brooks, ponds, streams, ferns, grass, trees, bushes, and woodlands situated on the plains. Along with the Scollard Canyon, Pachycephalosaurus has been discovered. Birds, fish, amphibians such frogs, toads, salamanders, birds, reptiles like snakes, lizards, turtles, alligators, crocodiles, invertebrates like insects, arachnids, crustaceans, arthropods, and small mammals coexisted alongside Pachycephalosaurus and other dinosaurs in the plains of Scollard.

Classification of the Pachycephalosaurus

• Pachycephalosaurus was the name given to the Pachycephalosauria, a group of herbivorous ornithischian or bird-hipped dinosaurs that existed in North America and Asia during the Late Cretaceous Period. They were more closely linked to the ceratopsians than the ornithopods, despite their bipedal position.

• Pachycephalosaurus is the most well-known Pachycephalosauria member. Stenopelix, Wannanosaurus, Goyocephale, Stegoceras, Homalocephale, Tylocephale, Sphaerotholus, and Prenocephale are all members of this group. Pachycephalosaurus is the most closely related member of the Pachycephalosaurini group to Alaskacephale. Pachycephalosaurus has been given the names Dracorex and Stygimoloch. Debates and discussions on whether Dracorex or Stygimoloch was a Pachycephalosaurus juvenile are still going on.

Diet of Pachycephalosaurus

• Many palaeontologists are still trying to figure out what these dinosaurs ate. They couldn't have devoured tough, fibrous vegetation as successfully as other dinosaurs of the time since their teeth were so tiny and ridged. 

• Pachycephalosaurs are thought to have eaten a variety of leaves, seeds, and fruits. Shredding plants would have been a breeze with the sharp, serrated teeth. The dinosaur's diet is also thought to have contained meat. It featured serrated blade-like front teeth, similar to those of predatory theropods, according to the most complete fossil jaw. For the time being, it's fair to presume that the Pachycephalosaurus ate moss, ferns, seeds, and fruits.

Growth of Pachycephalosaurus

• Dracorex and Stygimoloch were previously suggested as Pachycephalosaurus juvenile or female morphologies at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual conference in 2007.

• From a study of the skull of the solitary known Dracorex specimen, Jack Horner of Montana State University offered evidence that this dinosaur was most likely a juvenile version of Stygimoloch. He also offered evidence that suggests that Stygimoloch and Dracorex are Pachycephalosaurus juvenile forms.

• Horner and M.B. Goodwin published their results in 2009, demonstrating that all three "species" had a very pliable spike or node and cranial dome bones and that Dracorex and Stygimoloch are only known from juvenile specimens, whereas Pachycephalosaurus is only known from adult individuals.

• They concluded that Dracorex and Stygimoloch were just young Pachycephalosaurus that shed spikes and gained domes as they grew older, based on these findings and the fact that all three taxa existed at the same period and in the same region.

• Nick Longrich and colleagues published research in 2010 that supported the theory that all flat-skulled pachycephalosaur species were juveniles of dome-headed adults like Goyocephale and Homalocephale.

• The finding of young Pachycephalosaurus skulls from two distinct bone beds in the Hell Creek Formation in 2016 has been cited as more support for this concept. The specimens, according to David Evans and Mark Goodwin et al, have the same positioning of rugose knobs on their heads as all three alleged taxa, and the distinctive traits of Stygimoloch and Dracorex are therefore morphologically consistent characteristics on a Pachycephalosaurus development curve.