Peloroplites

"monstrous heavy one"

Generic ankylosaur body-plan outline
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Peloroplites 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 Peloroplites
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (98.2–93 Mya)
Place
Utah, USA
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Nodosauridae Dinosauria Ornithischia Thyreophora Ankylosauria Ankylosaurs without the tail club.

Peloroplites (meaning “monstrous heavy one”) is a monospecific genus of nodosaurid dinosaur from Utah that lived during the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian to lower Turonian stage, 98.2 to 93 Ma) in what is now the Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation. The type and only species, Peloroplites cedrimontanus, is known from a partial skull and postcranial skeleton. It was named in 2008 by Kenneth Carpenter and colleagues. Peloroplites was 6 metres (20 feet) long and weighed 2 tonnes (4,410 lbs), making it one of the largest known nodosaurids, and came from a time when ankylosaurids and nodosaurids were attaining large sizes.

What we know

  • Named by Carpenter et al., 2008.
  • Fossils found in Utah, USA.

What we guess

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