{"id":325765,"date":"2026-03-03T00:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325765\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T00:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:35:08","slug":"rare-fossil-of-baby-dome-headed-dinosaur-unearthed-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/325765\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Fossil of Baby Dome-Headed Dinosaur Unearthed in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years, the fossil record of pachycephalosaurs (dome-headed dinosaurs) has been dominated by fossilized skulls. The postcranial material of young pachycephalosaurs, by contrast, has remained almost entirely unknown. Paleontologists have now described the youngest example yet of a pachycephalosaur body, offering a look at how these dinosaurs grew and moved during their first months of life.<\/p>\n

\"Life<\/a><\/p>\n

Life reconstruction of the pachycephalosaur individual CMNFV 22039 in an environment typical of the Upper Maastrichtian Frenchman Formation. Image credit: Kaitlin Lindblad.<\/p>\n

\u201cPachycephalosauria<\/a> comprises mostly small (between 2 and 6 m long), bipedal dinosaurs from the Santonian to Maastrichtian ages (85 to 66 million years ago) of Asia and North America,\u201d said Carleton University paleontologist Bryan Moore and his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clade is best known for the fusion of its frontal and parietal bones into an inflated dome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe surrounding cranial elements are sometimes incorporated into this structure and are often adorned with nodes, spikes, and other ornaments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the frontoparietal domes are the most taphonomically resistant parts of pachycephalosaur skeletons (except for teeth), the pachycephalosaurian fossil record is dominated by these partial cranial remains.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, much of what is known about pachycephalosaur ontogeny and phylogeny is based largely on skull morphology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catalogued as CMNFV 22039, the newly-described pachycephalosaurian specimen is approximately 67 million years old (Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch).<\/p>\n

The fossil was found within the Frenchman Formation<\/a>, the youngest of five Maastrichtian formations in southern Saskatchewan, Canada.<\/p>\n

This dinosaur was likely less than a year old when it died, making it the youngest pachycephalosaur known from skeletal remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite its small size (estimated total length of 90 cm, or 3 feet), the skeleton shows several characters diagnostic of Pachycephalosauria,\u201d the paleontologists said.<\/p>\n

The findings show that many of the features scientists rely on to identify adult pachycephalosaurs were already present very early in life.<\/p>\n

They also hint at how young pachycephalosaurs moved: compared with adults, the juvenile\u2019s hindlimbs were proportionally long, suggesting a more cursorial, or speed-oriented, build early in life.<\/p>\n

As the animals matured, their bodies appear to have shifted toward the stockier proportions seen in adults, indicating a change in locomotion as they grew larger and heavier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relatively long hindlimbs of the juvenile compared with those of adult pachycephalosaurs indicate probable negative ontogenetic allometry in the hindlimbs,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper<\/a> was published on February 26 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Bryan R.S. Moore et al. The ontogenetically youngest known pachycephalosaur (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) postcranium. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, published online February 26, 2026; doi: 10.1080\/02724634.2026.2616325<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many years, the fossil record of pachycephalosaurs (dome-headed dinosaurs) has been dominated by fossilized skulls. The postcranial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[289,13650,9155,150876,958,61,60,59349,7891,150877,134691,59052,1958,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-325765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-dinosaur","10":"tag-fossil","11":"tag-frenchman-formation","12":"tag-growth","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-locomotion","16":"tag-north-america","17":"tag-ontogeny","18":"tag-ornithischia","19":"tag-pachycephalosauria","20":"tag-saskatchewan","21":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}