Ankylosauria
| Ankylosaurs Temporal range: Middle Jurassic—Late Cretaceous, | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Collection of ankylosaurs. From top left to right: Liaoningosaurus, Edmontonia, Tianzhenosaurus, Gargoyleosaurus, Scolosaurus, Denversaurus, Gastonia, Borealopelta and Akainacephalus. | |||
| Scientific classification | |||
| Domain: | Eukaryota | ||
| Kingdom: | Animalia | ||
| Phylum: | Chordata | ||
| Clade: | Dinosauria | ||
| Clade: | †Ornithischia | ||
| Clade: | †Thyreophora | ||
| Clade: | †Eurypoda | ||
| Clade: | †Ankylosauria Osborn, 1923 | ||
| Subgroups | |||
| |||
| Synonyms | |||
| |||
Ankylosauria is a group of herbivorous dinosaurs of the clade Ornithischia. It includes the great majority of dinosaurs with armor in the form of bony osteoderms, similar to turtles. Ankylosaurs were bulky quadrupeds, with short, powerful limbs. They are known to have first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, and persisted until the end of the Cretaceous Period. The two main families of Ankylosaurs, Nodosauridae and Ankylosauridae are primarily known from the Northern Hemisphere, but the more basal Parankylosauria are known from southern Gondwana during the Cretaceous.
Ankylosauria was first named by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1923. In the Linnaean classification system, the group is usually considered either a suborder or an infraorder. It is contained within the group Thyreophora, which also includes the stegosaurs, armored dinosaurs known for their combination of plates and spikes.