Talk:Pinacosaurus

Did I read that right?
This article states that the skull of Pinacosaurus is 5 metres long. Clearly this is a mistake, as it is not physically possible. And the skeleton in the picture doesn't look like it has a 16-foot head. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinolover45 (talk • contribs) 02:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like it needed a comma. But there's no justification for describing the skull as long anyway so I removed that bit. MMartyniuk (talk) 09:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Another random question, do you think the restored skull in the infobox is supposed to be P. mephistocephalus, ? It seems to have four horns. Here's a clearer view of its head: FunkMonk (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * That is hard to say. We have to keep in mind that it is only a model, probably not even directly based on casts. As such it is pretty good. Most visitors will be fooled into thinking it is a real skeleton! The general proportions are correct. Many details are not. The back osteoderms, though modest, seem sheer fantasy. The foot has four, much too slender, toes. The hindlimbs are placed too abducted. The skull is in any case not a cast of the P. mephistocephalus holotype. It might be inspired by it in that the horns are so long. But that could also be a coincidence for a pointy orbital horn was added that in reality was hardly present. It looks as if the sculptor wanted to be "educational" and exaggerated typical traits. A presumed P. grangeri trait is the notch above the nostril. However, we must also understand that the real specimens cannot strictly be divided between the two species. The authentic small skull we show e.g. has the notch but also wide squamosal horns! It is undoubtedly Pinacosaurus but has, as far as I know, never been formally referred to either species. So, although Arbour within the context of her qualitative approach had to conclude that P. mephistocephalus is valid, common sense tells us that Paul was right and the differences are caused by a mix of individual variation, ontogeny, sexual dimorphism and a bit of anagenesis within a single population. Luckily, with N = 150 or so, this riddle can be solved by statistical means :o). BTW, many thanks for the extra pictures (again)!--MWAK (talk) 08:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Having looked at the image of the juvenile again, I retract my statement that the squamosal horns are wide; what is seen in front view are the orbital horns, which in fact are pretty pointy when seen from behind. But I still don't believe the model was deliberately based on P. mephistocephalus alone :o).--MWAK (talk) 09:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, interesting. Based on my superficial reading of the Polonica paper, it is possible that the fourth toe may just not have been preserved? FunkMonk (talk) 14:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * We can't be sure, but given the fact that so many articulated specimens have been found and they all have three toes, this seems unlikely. Unless the fourth toe was rudimentary and not ossified with juveniles.--MWAK (talk) 10:06, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No Tarbosaurus
I replaced the part about Pinacosaurus using its tail club for defence against predators such as Tarbosaurus with predators such as Velociraptor as the rocks that contain fossils of Tarbosaurus bataar are slightly younger than the ones that yield those of Pinacosaurus. Velociraptor, however, is known from the same rocks and as such it was, as far as I know, the only predator Pinacosaurus or any other contemporary herbivores would have had to worry about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.148.242 (talk) 00:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The same point was made by Gregory S. Paul in 2010 and has as such been reintroduced in the article.--MWAK (talk) 13:26, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Pinacosaurus
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Pinacosaurus's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Holtz2008": From Minmi (dinosaur): Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2010 Appendix. From Ornithischia: Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2012) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2011 Appendix. From Dinosaur:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 18:36, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Artist's Rendering
I draw dinosaurs, and I was wondering if it would be okay for me to create a digital drawing of Pinacosaurus grangeri and possibly upload it as a visual for this article. I'm not very experienced in things like this and I would love to learn about the process! Is there someone who can review a drawing if I create one to see if it is of good enough quality to post? Audrey.m.horn (talk) 21:18, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Have a look at WP:dinoart. FunkMonk (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

MPC 100/1305 can't be Pinacosaurus
MPC 100/1305 = GI-SPS 100/135 cannot possibly be Pinacosaurus, because GI SPS 100/135 shares with the holotype of Saichania GI=SPS 100/151 a broad, prominent notch at the anterior edge of the fused sternal plates (GI SPS 100/151 & GI SPS 100/1305) vs. wedge-shaped, anteriorly tapering; lateral and internal tuberocities of humerus level with dorsal surface of humeral head (GI SPS 100/151 & GI SPS 100/1305) vs. well below in Pinacosaurus. Based on what is now known about variation in ankylosaur humeri, the difference between the humeri of GI SPS 100/151 & GI SPS 100/1305 are not taxonomically significant, but differ significantly from Pinacosaurus. GI SPS 100/1305 cannot be referred to Pinacosaurus owing to the proportionally shorter tail having fewer free caudals (10 vs. 17). Also, paleomagnetic data show that the Djadokhta and Barun Goyot Formation show them to have been deposited at the same time under different environments. This was discussed in B. Kinneer, K. Carpenter, and A. Shaw. 2016. Redescription of Gastonia burgei (Dinosauria: Ankylosauria, Polacanthidae), and a description of a new species. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaeontologie Abhandlungen, v. 282/1, p. 37-80. 67.213.244.166 (talk) 03:31, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Has this been explicitly stated in print? FunkMonk (talk) 09:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is stated in that paper (here's a link to it: ). The above comment is a pretty close quote of some parts of that section in the paper, where Kinneer et al. (2016) refute the assignment to Pinacosaurus. I'm not sure where things have gone from here in the literature, it doesn't seem like the specimen has received much more discussion. The paper does, however, state that "Further discussion given elsewhere (Carpenter in preparation).", so we may get more data on this eventually. I'm not totally sure what this means for my Saichania size chart now... --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 11:41, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Temporal range conflict
From infobox header: "Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 75–72 Ma"

From first line of article: "Pinacosaurus (meaning "Plank lizard") is a genus of ankylosaurid thyreophoran dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous (Santonian-Campanian, roughly 80 million to 75 million years ago), mainly in Mongolia and China."

These two seem to be contradictory. Which is correct? --2601:206:8001:A0D0:0:0:0:C414 (talk) 17:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Now it's 145 to 66 for some reason, there's no way Pinacosaurus could have existed for 79 million years, the entire Cretaceous. And it literally says 145 to 66, right after it is explicitly stated that it was from the Santonian to the Campanian. 142.114.150.99 (talk) 21:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC)