Dinosaurs A to Z
Ankylosauridae

Aletopelta uh-liːtoʊ-peltuh-KOHMZEE

"wanderer shield"

Generic ankylosaur body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Aletopelta 5 m (16.4 ft) long
as long as 3 people standing fingertip to fingertip
generic ankylosaur body plan, scaled to length — not a silhouette of Aletopelta
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (75.5 Mya)
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Ankylosauridae Dinosauria Ornithischia Thyreophora Ankylosauria Club-tailed armored herbivores.

Aletopelta (; meaning ‘wanderer shield’) is a monospecific genus of basal ankylosaurid dinosaur from Southern California that lived during the Late Cretaceous (upper Campanian stage, 75.5 Ma) in what is now the Point Loma Formation. The type and only species, Aletopelta coombsi, is known from a partial skeleton preserving osteoderms. It was originally described in 1996 by W. P. Coombs, Jr. and T.A. Deméré before being named in 2001 by Tracy Ford and James Kirkland. Aletopelta has an estimated size of 5 metres (16 feet) and weight of 2 tonnes (4,409 lbs). The holotype formed a miniature reef and was scavenged upon by invertebrates and sharks.

What we know

  • Named by Ford & Kirkland, 2001.

What we guess

The reconstruction notes for Aletopelta — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.