1 1-2 G. R. Wieland — Notes on the Armored Dinosaur ia. 



Art. XV — Notes on, tin Armored Dinosauria; by G. R. 



Wieland. 



[Contributions from the Paleontological Laboratory of Yale University.] 



With the progress of exploration in many fields it becomes 

 more and more evident that an interesting,' parallel must exist 

 between the long-persistent Testudinata and the shorter-lived 

 armored Dinosauria, a group which plainly constituted a 

 numerous and varied cosmopolitan race with its dermogene 

 bones always as distinctly ranged in keels as in any turtles. 

 For, as insisted upon several years since,* not only is a pri- 

 mary comparison afforded by the keels, but secondarily as well, 

 the lumbar-hip carapace, present in the Nodosauridae though 

 not in the Stegosauridae, finds its analogy in the osteodermal 

 mosaic of Dermochelys. 



Nevertheless, despite the cumulative evidence for the exist- 

 ence of a race of keeled saurians of world-wide distribution, 

 and despite the frequent occurrence of more or less isolated 

 plates from these keels, only the median dorsal line of Stt go- 

 saurus and the lumbar-hip carapace of Polacant/nis (with 

 Stegopelta Willistonf), are so far known with any degree of sat- 

 isfying exactness. Indeed it appears that collectors, in both 

 Europe and America, have been so little fortunate in finding 

 the keeled Dinosaurs with their plates more or less naturally 

 aligned in situ as to long leave the existence of such a great 

 group obscure, although field work has but recently reached a 

 far point in the collection of integumented skeletons of the uu- 

 armored, swift-footed Laramie Hadrosaurs. Nor was it known 

 until three years ago that in that most explored of all verte- 

 brate yielding horizons of North America, the Niobrara chalk, 

 typical armored saurians occur. Then, as described in this 

 Journal,^: the plates assigned to the new genus IHerosaurus 

 (with dermal plates characterized by deep and broad horn 

 shield sulci), were found by the fossil hunter Sternberg. 



As it transpired, the interest of these fossils had not been 

 fully recognized by their collector. In consequence, as was 

 later learned on the occasion of a visit by Mr. Sternberg at the 

 writer's home, many much weathered and broken fragments 

 of the type had been left behind. But fortunately, as found 

 so desirable by us both, Mr. Sternberg was able to make the 

 needed reexamination of the locality before the frosts of 

 another winter had set in, securing and sending every last 

 remaining fragment. 



*A new Armored Saurian from the Niobrara ; by G. E. Wieland. This 

 Journal, vol. xxvii, March, 1909, p. 250-252. 



+ A new Armored Dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Wyoming ; by 

 S. W. Williston, Science, N. S., vol. xxii, No. 564, October 20, 1905, p. 503- 

 540. [Preliminary note on Stegopelta lander ensis, from the Fort Benton. 

 An illustrated description is not yet published.] X Loc. cit. 



