Gastonia (dinosaur)
genus of reptiles (fossil)
Gastonia is an armoured dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of North America. It lived about 139 to 125 million years ago.
| Gastonia Temporal range: Early Cretaceous,
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| Reconstructed skeleton of G. burgei, BYU Museum of Paleontology | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Thyreophora |
| Suborder: | †Ankylosauria |
| Family: | †Nodosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Polacanthinae |
| Genus: | †Gastonia Kirkland, 1998 |
| Type species | |
| †Gastonia burgei Kirkland, 1998
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| Species | |
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It was a nodosaurid, closely related to Polacanthus. Gastonia has a sacral shield and large shoulder spikes.
Several examples of this genus of herbivorous ankylosaur were found in Utah in the Cedar Mountain Formation.[1]
References
change- ↑ Kirkland, J.I. (1998). A polacanthine ankylosaur (Ornithischia: Dinosauria) from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of eastern Utah. In: S.G. Lucas, J.I. Kirkland, & J.W. Estep, (eds) Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 14: 271-281.