Akainacephalus

Akainacephalus was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived 76 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. Akainacephalus was first discovered by Scott Richardson, a Bureau of Land Management employee who also discovered Lythronax and Kosmoceratops, all in the same region of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The dinosaur was medium-sized, standing at 3 feet 6 inches tall and stretching about 15 feet long. It lived in present-day southern Utah, which during the Late Cretaceous Period was part of the southern portion of Laramidia, an island continent that stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico. Though ankylosaurids originated in Asia between 125 - 100 million years ago, they do not appear in the western North American fossil record until about 77 million years ago. The new species Akainacephalus offers the most complete skeleton of an ankylosaurid dinosaur found in the southwestern United States. It includes a skull, much of the vertebral column, including a complete tail club, several fore and hind limbs elements, and bony body armour that includes two neck rings and spiked armour plates.

Akainacephalus Media

• 

  Map of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument. Kaiparowits Formation is in dark green.

• 

  Life reconstruction of Akainacephalus johnsoni, based on work by Jelle P. Wiersma and Randall B. Irmis.

• 

  Preserved elements and skeletal reconstructions

• 

  Skull of Akainacephalus in side views.

• 

  Comparison of Akainacephalus (left) and Nodocephalosaurus.

• 

  Sacrum and caudosacral vertebrae.

• 

  Tibia in anterior and posterior views.

• 

  Tail club handle and knob.

• 

  Cervical half rings and other noncervical osteoderms.