Mongolostegus
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Mongolostegus Temporal range:
Early Cretaceous, |
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| Life restoration | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Thyreophora |
| Suborder: | †Stegosauria |
| Family: | †Stegosauridae |
| Genus: |
†Mongolostegus Tumanova and Alifanov, 2018 |
| Type species | |
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†Mongolostegus exspectabilis Tumanova and Alifanov, 2018
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| Synonyms | |
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Mongolostegus (meaning "Mongolian roof") is a genus of stegosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) Dzunbain Formation of Mongolia. The type and only species is M. exspectabilis, known from a single specimen previously under the nomen nudum Wuerhosaurus mongoliensis.
Mongolostegus is one of the youngest known stegosaurs, along with Stegosaurus and Yanbeilong.
Discovery and description
The holotype is PIN 3779-15, which consists of posterior dorsal and anterior caudal vertebrae as well as pelvic material.
Mongolostegus was first reported by Alifanov et al. (2005) and Alifanov (2012) as an indeterminate stegosaur.
Ulansky (2014) informally dubbed the material Wuerhosaurus mongoliensis, but Galton and Carpenter (2016) found W. mongoliensis to be invalid. It was formally named as Mongolostegus by Tumanova and Alifanov in 2018.
Classification
Tumanova and Alifanov (2018) found Mongolostegus to belong to Stegosauridae.