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Scientific name; Pachycephalosaurus Wyomingensis

Lived during the late Cretaceous period 72.1-66 MYA

Diet; Herbivore

Photo from Flickr

About the Pachycephalosaurus

When you hear the word “dinosaur” what do you think of. The Pachycephalosaurus isn’t what you think when you first hear the word “dinosaur”. You think of the giant T-Rex or the Triceratops but the Pachycephalosaurus was only about 6 feet tall. This bipedal dinosaur had the craziest way of showmanship. Featuring a giant bony skull and crown of spikes, they would but-heads with each other to assert dominance and attract a mate. It was also a tool for defense, using it to ram predators in the hip to up their chances of escaping. 

The Pachycephalosaurus is a bipedal herbivore estimated to be about the size of a rhinoceros. Pachycephalosaurus fossils are extremely rare as we have only found the skull and fragments of the body. Scientists use other, smaller relatives to determine what this ancient creature really looked like. Originally, scientists thought multiple smaller species of Pachycephalosaur, the Dracorex being the juvenile and the Stygimoloch being a young adult, was a Pachycephalosaurus through testing and head structure they determined it was a separate species. Pachycephalosaurus are one of the greatest mysteries for Paleontology because of their lack of fossil evidence. Looking at this dinosaur really shows you how weird some of the ancient animals were.

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