BRONTOTHOLUS
a plant-eating pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of North America.
Pronunciation: BRON-toe-THOH-lus
Meaning: Thunder dome
Author/s: Woodruff
et al. (
2025)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Montana, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #1182
Brontotholus harmoni
[Harmon's Thunder Dome]
Etymology
Brontotholus is derived from the Greek "bronto" (thunder) and "tholus" (dome),
in homage to the 1985 film "Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome", and the paratype’s (MOR 479) locality name of Beyond Thunder Dome.
The
species epithet,
harmoni, honours the late Robert "Bob" Harmon, former Chief Preparator at the Museum of the Rockies, whose sharp eyes and field expertise shaped generations of palaeontologists and led to countless fossil discoveries.
Discovery
The first remains of
Brontotholus were found by Bob Makela in the Two Medicine Formation of Montana, USA, in 1978.
The
holotype (MOR 480) is a skull dome. The paratype (MOR 479), from the same area, is also a skull dome.
Two other domes (MOR 453 and MOR 550) from the Two Medicine Formation, and another (TMP 1989.69.21) found by Wendy Sloboda in the Oldman Formation in 1989, were referred to
Brontotholus as
Brontotholus sp.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Cretaceous
Stage: Campanian
Age range: 75 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 3.8 meters
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: ?
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Horner JR, Varricchio DJ and Goodwin MB (1992) "Marine transgressions and the evolution of Cretaceous dinosaurs".
Nature, 358(6381): 59–61. DOI: 10.1038/358059a0.
• Sullivan RM (2003) "Revision of the dinosaur Stegoceras Lambe (Ornithischia, Pachycephalosauridae)".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 23(1): 181–207. DOI: 10.1671/0272-4634(2003)23[181:rotdsl]2.0.co;2.
• Woodruff DC, Horner JR, Goodwin MB and Evans DC (2025)
"The first pachycephalosaurid from the Late Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation: effects of the Western Interior Seaway on North American pachycephalosaurid evolution".
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 205(2): zlaf087
DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaf087.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
BRONTOTHOLUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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