Ahshislepelta

Ahshislepelta was a Late Cretaceous armoured dinosaur that lived in the coastal river basins of what is now the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. Belonging to the ankylosaurid family, it is known from a partial postcranial skeleton comprising shoulder girdle elements, limb bones, vertebrae, and osteoderms discovered within the Hunter Wash Member of the Kirtland Formation. Estimated at roughly four metres in length, Ahshislepelta was smaller than giant contemporaries such as Ankylosaurus. Its forelimbs were stout and heavily muscled, built to support a wide, low body clad in protective dermal bone. Ahshislepelta was a quadrupedal herbivore that grazed on tough ferns, cycads, and early angiosperms along floodplain environments, using its low stature and bony armour to withstand threats from local tyrannosaurs.

Its name derives from the Ah-shi-sle-pah Wash in New Mexico, where its incomplete skeleton was recovered.

Where and when

Ahshislepelta lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 76.5 to 74.5 million years ago (Campanian age). Its remains come from United States, in the Kirtland Formation.

The numbers

Length 4 m (estimates run from 3.5 to 4.5 m). Mass about 1 t. Hip height about 1.2 m. That is 2.4 human-lengths, or 0.36 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from fragmentary remains; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, first ma, last ma, hip height.

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