In Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, scientists discovered a pristine fossil of a previously unknown, dome-headed dinosaur. It’s not only the oldest of its kind ever found but also the most complete. Zavacephale rinpoche is, was, a three-foot-long, 13-pound prehistoric brawler with a skull that could double as a battering ram.
Discovered by paleontologist Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig and his team in the Khuren Dukh Formation, Zavacephale was published in Nature and is approximately 108 million years old. That’s 14 million years older than the next oldest known pachycephalosaur. Cue the “this changes everything we know about dinosaurs” headlines—which, to be fair, is not wrong.
Unlike the partial skulls scientists usually find of this Cretaceous-era once-living battering ram, this one came much more intact than usual. It came complete with a tail, hand bones (which were a first), stomach stones, and an undistorted skull.
Near-Complete Skull Found Changes Everything We Know About Dome-Headed Dinosaurs
Pachycephalosaurs, the Late Cretaceous dome-headed dinos you might remember briefly seeing in The Last World: Jurassic Park, are known primarily from fractured skull tops. This explains all the wild speculation as to how they were used.
Some say they headbutted each other like prehistoric rams; others say their dome was more a daring fashion piece. This new Zavacephale discovery is so important because it might finally give us proper answers.
Its adolescent skeleton came with a fully developed dome, suggesting that even dinosaur teens were already prepped for clashes, whether for dominance, to find mates, or just for posturing.
CT scans of its skull revealed that Zavacephale’s dome was mostly made of frontal bones. That’s interesting because the domes of the later species evolved differently. This makes Zavacephale both a snapshot of where pachycephalosaurs started and a map of how they changed over time.
This specific dinosaur is going to be studied for years to come as it bridges gaps in our knowledge of its species’ evolution.
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