Dinosaurs A to Z
Nodosauridae

Hoplitosaurus

"Hoplite lizard"

Generic ankylosaur body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Hoplitosaurus 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 Hoplitosaurus
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Early Cretaceous (130 Mya)
Place
South Dakota, USA
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Nodosauridae Dinosauria Ornithischia Thyreophora Ankylosauria Ankylosaurs without the tail club.

Hoplitosaurus (meaning “Hoplite lizard”) was a genus of armored dinosaur related to Polacanthus. It was named from a partial skeleton found in the Barremian (Early Cretaceous) Lakota Formation of Custer County, South Dakota. It is an obscure genus which has been subject to some misinterpretation of its damaged remains. Although there was a push to synonymize it with Polacanthus in the late 1980s-early 1990s, Hoplitosaurus has been accepted as a valid albeit poorly known genus in more recent reviews.

What we know

  • Named by Lucas, 1902.
  • Fossils found in South Dakota, USA.

What we guess

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