Pronunciation: tsah-gahn-tay-gee-uh
Meaning: for Tsagaan Teg
Author/s: Tumanova (1993)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Dornogovi, Mongolia
Discovery Chart Position: #381
Tsagantegia longicranialis
Initially, we struggled to find meaning in the meaning of Tsagantegia but received the answer just as we were on the verge of becoming fluent in Mongolian. Okay, that's a fib, but we can tell you that Tsagaan Teg (note the correct "aa" long vowel) literally means "White Mountain" and is a reference to the place of its first and only discovery within the Baynshire Formation in the south east corner of Mongolia's Gobi desert.
Tsagantegia is a primitive, long-snouted ankylosaurid, with an unusually flat and smooth skull measuring twelve inches long and ten across at its widest point. It lacks the typical armour plating of its heavy-weight relatives and is instead adorned with a series of irregularly-shaped scutes and a few smallish horns, no doubt arranged to afford maximum protection from predation. But don't be fooled: this noggin trimming didn't make room for a bigger brain, and its generally sleaker design was not an advanced feature.
As time went by, the club-tailed ankylosaurids became heavier, slower, and no brighter, but managed to fart their way around the areas now known as Asia, North America, Antarctica, and Africa in one form or another right up to the K/Pg boundary, where it took a six-mile-wide meteorite to stop them dead in their tracks.
Tsagantegia is a primitive, long-snouted ankylosaurid, with an unusually flat and smooth skull measuring twelve inches long and ten across at its widest point. It lacks the typical armour plating of its heavy-weight relatives and is instead adorned with a series of irregularly-shaped scutes and a few smallish horns, no doubt arranged to afford maximum protection from predation. But don't be fooled: this noggin trimming didn't make room for a bigger brain, and its generally sleaker design was not an advanced feature.
As time went by, the club-tailed ankylosaurids became heavier, slower, and no brighter, but managed to fart their way around the areas now known as Asia, North America, Antarctica, and Africa in one form or another right up to the K/Pg boundary, where it took a six-mile-wide meteorite to stop them dead in their tracks.
(Long skull of Tsagaan-Teg)Etymology
Tsagantegia is named for Tsagaan-Teg (the Mongolian locality where it was found), which, as with the velociraptorine theropod Tsagaan mangas, is a seplling miskate.The species epithet, longicranialis, is derived from the Latin "longus" (long) and "cranium" (skull), in reference to its long-snouted skull.
Discovery
The remains of Tsagantegia were found at "Tsagaan-Teg" in the Baynshire Formation (aka Bayn Shire, Bayanshiree, Bayn Shiree Svita, Bayn Shireh Svita, Baynshirenskaya), Dornogovi (East Gobi) Aimag (Province), Mongolia, in 1983.
The holotype (GI SPS N 700/17) is a skull, lacking the lower jaws.
