An ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Cenomanian Dunvegan Formation of northeastern British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Fragmentary but associated dinosaur bones collected in 1930 from the Pine River of northeastern British Columbia are identified here as originating from an ankylosaur. The specimen represents only the second occurrence of dinosaur skeletal material from the Cenomanian Dunvegan Formation and the first from Dunvegan outcrops in the province of British Columbia. Nodosaurid ankylosaur footprints are common ichnofossils in the formation, but the skeletal material described here is too fragmentary to confidently assign to either a nodosaurid or ankylosaurid ankylosaur. The Cenomanian is a time of major terrestrial faunal transitions in North America, but many localities of this age are located in the southern United States; the discovery of skeletal fossils from the Pine River demonstrates the potential for the Dunvegan Formation to produce terrestrial vertebrate fossils that may provide important new data on this significant transitional period during the Cretaceous.