COLEPIOCEPHALE
A thick-headed pachycephalosaurid cerapod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Canada.
Pronunciation: ko-lep-ee-o-SEF-uh-lee
Meaning: Knucklehead
Author/s: Sullivan (
2003)
Synonyms: Stegoceras lambei
First Discovery: Alberta, Canada
Discovery Chart Position: #514
Colepiocephale lambei
(Lambe's Knuckle Head)Etymology
Colepiocephale is derived from the Latin "colepium" (knuckle, specifically a knuckle of beef or pork) and the Greek "cephale" (head), referring to the down-turned knuckle-like shape of the rear part of its skull dome when viewed from the side.
The
species epithet,
lambei, honours Canadian palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe who found the first fossils of
Stegoceras in 1898.
Colepiocephale lambei was initially assigned to
Stegoceras as
Stegoceras lambei by Sternberg in 1945.
Discovery
Although originally reported as coming from the Oldman Formation, the remains of
Colepiocephale were discovered in what is now the Foremost Formation (Belly River Group), South Saskatchewan River, 3 miles below Bow Island Ferry, Alberta, Canada, by E. J. Whittaker in 1923.
The
holotype (CMN 8818) is a nearly complete adult skull dome.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Cretaceous
Stage: Campanian
Age range: 80-78 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 1.8 meters
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: 40 Kg
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Sternberg CM (1945) "Pachycephalosauridae proposed for dome-headed dinosaurs,
Stegoceras lambei, n. sp., described".
Journal of Paleontology, 19(5): 534-538.
• 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.
• Maryanska T, Chapman RE and Weishampel DB (2004) "Pachycephalosauria". Page 464–477 in Weishampel, Dodson and Osmólska (eds.) "
The Dinosauria: Second Edition".
• Sullivan RM (2006) "
A taxonomic review of the Pachycephalosauridae (Dinosauria: Ornithischia)".
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 35: 347–365. 
• Schott RK (2011) "Ontogeny, Diversity, and Systematics of Pachycephalosaur
Dinosaurs from the Belly River Group of Alberta".
Unpublished thesis, University of Toronto.
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Atkinson, L.
"
COLEPIOCEPHALE :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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